Above and Beyond
by Fallain
Summary: When a supply run turns into a trap, Alec and Logan are separated from Max and Mole.  When Logan comes back alone, Max has do to whatever it takes to get Alec back.
1. Makes Me Wonder

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Dark Angel. I just like to play with the characters since I think that things should have gone differently and it's a shame it ended so early, even with the books.

Warnings: mild language, torture, angst, sexual situations, Max/Alec

This isn't a sequel to Who He Is and takes place after Freak Nation in the show, but before Skin Game in the books. Just something I had in my head.

Chapter 1: Makes Me Wonder

Max cursed her luck as she dropped down into the sewers, feeling the murky, filthy water splash up her leg and leak into her boots. Directly behind her, she heard a second splash as Mole landed and she felt more lukewarm water splash on her, soaking her clothing.

She shrugged off the uncomfortable feeling crawling up her spine as her brain registered the disgusting water coating her clothes. It's not like this night could have gotten any worse anyways. Mole cocked his shotgun behind her as if daring anything else to prove her wrong and as a prepared promise to blow away any more obstacles. The lizard-like transhuman had a short patience and this night had already flown through what little he had. Max wouldn't have been surprised if by this point Mole started shooting at the rats scurrying by just to relieve some of his tension and frustration.

Hell, she'd like to shoot a couple of the rats to get out some of her pent up stress that she was trying to keep in check until they were safely back inside the gates of Terminal City.

It was supposed to have been a routine supply mission. Not even the dangerous kind that had her and Alec jumping from building to building with large knapsacks full of stolen goods. Logan had found a friendly source that was willing to exchange canned foods and other small useful objects such as soap and ducktape, and all he wanted in return was Eyes Only help on finding his kidnapped daughter.

Logan had insisted in coming along since the man wanted Eyes Only help and since there wasn't supposed to be any danger. And who was Max to deny the man? Ever since they had raised the flag Joshua had painted high in the sky above Terminal City, Logan's persistence to find a cure intensified. But the more he searched, the more Max felt herself slipping away and caring less and less. She should be ecstatic. She loved this man and they had been through so much together. He was willing to do so much for her, even risk his life just by being around her with the virus. And yet, she could barely force herself to smile at the idea of them being back together one day.

On the roof that fateful day, he had let his gloved hand slip into hers. At first she felt a spark of fury. She could have innocently and obliviously assumed that he only brought the gloves to wear so that they would be safe in case they accidently touched...but Max wasn't a stupid, naive girl. She knew that he wore those gloves so he could touch her even though she had told him she was with Alec now. And the idea of him being the kind of man that would touch someone else's girl made her blood boil. Even if she had been his first. And especially if he was trying to steal her from Alec.

She didn't mind Alec as much as she pretended to. Not at all. Sometimes it was all she could do to drown his obnoxious voice out of her head but when he wasn't around she found the silence to be empty, colder, and almost painful. She didn't punch him as hard as she used to, and lately, she'd been hitting him more in a joking manner than out of anger.

Sometimes she'd even wake up from her twice a week naps to vague memories of fading dreams full of green eyes that seemed to sparkle with mischief. She mostly just chalked it up to the fact that she couldn't be with Logan right now so she had lied and told the poor man that she and Alec was an item to spare him from being hurt. Or worse, killed by her own lethal skin.

But day by day it had gotten harder to resist picturing his handsome smirking face and lean, muscular body in her mind when he wasn't around. Day by day she found herself making more and more excuses to be close to him at all times. So of course he'd been the first person she'd asked to accompany her on this trip.

Logan may not believe it, and Alec may not know the truth, but Max would never take back what she had told Logan about her and Alec being together. The only part that frightened her, was that if Alec found out she wanted the lie to be the truth, he'd run from her, disgusted by her emotions.

They were only friends. They just 'weren't-like-that' and she wanted to scream in frustration. Why could none of her relationships 'be-like-that'? But even so, she refused to try and push something like this on Alec anymore than she already had. A little lie was better than the painful truth. At least this way she could stay close to him and pretend to have what she never would.

However, at this moment, Alec was currently wandering around with Logan who-knows-where. Probably in another sewer. Hopefully safe and on their way back to Terminal City as well. Like she was with Mole, who had insisted on coming along as well after pointing out that they'd probably need help carrying the cargo and there was safety in even numbers.

A point that had made it easy when the four of them had to split up.

The transgenics had known it was a trap the second they walked into the warehouse - perhaps sooner. Logan, who was lacking any military training of any kind, was oblivious as Alec grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him to the side to avoid a bullet that flew past them, instantly putting Max and Mole on their guard.

Logan, in the brief second before he heard the crack of the gun, had thought Alec had finally lost his mind and grabbed a hold of the X5's arm to drag him down as well as he was thrown across the room. Both the males landed roughly on the ground as Mole cocked his shotgun and ushered Max behind some crates by the door.

Max's senses were going crazy. She couldn't smell any blood which relived her and she zoomed her eyesight across the warehouse floor to where Alec had forcefully dragged Logan behind some other large, wooden crates. Both of them seemed unharmed and Alec had his .45 out and crouched in a defensive stance, ready to fire at will.

Seeing that both of the men were fine, she dodged around to the other side of the crates, signaling to them. An ordinary human wouldn't have even seen her movements, but she knew Alec picked up on the motions she made in the air with her hand. Alec nodded back to her as she slipped out the door to the right of them and into the night.

And now here she was, dragging herself through a foul-smelling sewer with Mole. She hated leaving Alec and Logan behind like that but she trusted Alec more than she had ever trusted anyone in her life. There had been another small metal door on their left side of the warehouse and they had both been in good enough condition to make it out easily. And even if there wasn't a sewage entrance nearby, it'd be simple to make it back out the way they'd come. They'd have the van they drove there to assist them in their escape.

Alec was one of the best she'd ever seen in action. This was probably why most of the X5 males regarded him with an alpha male respect. She wished that she was with Alec right now and it was Logan slugging his way through here with Mole. She hated being apart from him and not knowing what was happening. She wanted to be right there by his side, having his back, like they always did. But worry only clouded your mind during a battle and their fight wasn't over until they were back in TC. She knew he'd be fine. They both would. She had absolutely nothing to worry about except for what she was going to do to Logan when he got back.

She wanted to know who his informant was. The guy clearly wasn't a familiar, or the shot wouldn't have missed its mark and they wouldn't have been able to escape so easily. But it couldn't be a bad guy because Logan had done a through background research on Mr. Robert Parker. There had been a couple of gaps in his kidnapped daughter story, but he insisted it was because he'd been trying to hide her ever since she'd been born from his old gang boss.

Coming to their exit, she gripped the cold, slightly rusty ladder that lead up to an abandoned street right inside of Terminal City. All these years of wandering around in the sewers, Max could find her way anywhere underground. She shoved the manhole aside and heaved herself out into fresh air.

Now all there was left to do was wait for Alec and Logan to show up.

Alec saw Max make the motions for escape and evade before pointing out a metal door to their left. He nodded, motioning that he'd meet back at base before her and Mole turned and slipped out a door to their right.

He let out a breath of relief he hadn't been aware he had been holding as the door shut behind her, safely locking her out of the warehouse that held the lunatic with a gun. He hadn't detected any guards or reinforcements while they had been outside so her and Mole shouldn't have any problem getting safely back to Terminal City.

After all, there was a damn good reason why Max was the leader. Because Max was a damn good solider, even if she had run away from Manticore at a young age. Maybe all that running and hiding and real life evasion tactics had actually made her a better solider than the rest of them who had stayed behind, going through practice all their lives.

And she had Mole at her back, who was one of the most expertly trained transhuman with weaponry that Alec had yet to meet with a rugged, dangerous and intelligent personality to go with it.

They should have no problems getting out. Alec and Logan however, had a few obstacles. He realized the first as he slipped behind Logan, gun still at the ready in one hand as he snuck over to the metal door behind the wall of crates.

Locked. Go figure that was his luck that they'd be trapped on the side of the warehouse with the locked door. He dug through his pockets with one hand searching for a paper clip, safety pin, anything that he could use to pick the lock with.

"Oh eyes only...where oh where are you?" An eerie voice rang out through the not-so-empty warehouse in a sing song tone.

"Eyes only didn't come" Logan responded and Alec darted out a leg to kick and shush him. Logan let out a hiss of pain and glared at the X5 who mouthed the words 'don't give away our position dumbass'.

Go figure his luck was also to get stuck behind with the stupid human. Easy pick-up or not, Max shouldn't have allowed him to come along. But transgenic ass-kicker or not, Max was still a girl. And girls always allowed themselves to be blinded when it came to their emotions - especially love.

Alec mentally groaned. If he had just let Logan get shot all his problems would have been solved. He liked to let himself think that Logan was the only thing standing between him and Max actually being together for real. After all, virus or not, she had chosen to lie to him about Alec being her boyfriend. Too bad it was all just a ploy to keep Logan safe from her toxic skin until the day they'd find the cure and she'd frolic off to have hot monkey sex with the cyber geek without ever glancing back at what she could have had.

Alec could give her everything if she'd only give him the chance. He'd gone along with her little act, more than willingly. Every time he saw a hint of worry or despair in her beautiful chocolate eyes he'd do whatever he could to take it away, even if it ended with him in bruises that would heal by the next morning.

But because of that, he watched her more closely than she'd ever know. He knew the reason why she was so sad and distracted most of the time was because she was longing to be with Logan...and to have let that bullet hit Logan would have sent her into a spiral of despair. He couldn't let her get so brutally emotionally hurt like that. He'd protect her both mentally and physically, no matter what. Even if it cost him his own heart.

A bullet ricochets off a nearby crate, splintering the wood across the cold concrete floor and snapping Alec out of his thoughts. Logan beside him flattened himself onto the ground as Alec crept by on his haunches to try and get a look at the contact's location to get a shot back. From the angle of the bullet's path, he had to be somewhere above them. Yet he obviously couldn't see exactly where they were so he must be on the other side of the warehouse in the rafters or something.

His finger tightened on the trigger as his eyes scanned the darkness and another bullet rang out to break the tense silence, breaking the wood of yet another crate, further away from them this time.

"Why didn't Eyes Only come? This was HIS deal!" The voice rang out again. Alec shot Logan a glare that he must have gotten because the human kept his mouth shut this time instead of answering.

The lack of response seemed to provoke the stranger, as he pulled off three more shots, hitting various heights and locations in the crates and watching the wood explode like tiny fireworks. Some sort of gravel or sand started pouring out of one of the broken boxes, covering the ground and Alec used the noise of gravel tumbling and scattering across the floor as a distraction to blur to the other side of the warehouse.

Their little friend in the shadows saw the movement however and Alec felt a bullet whiz by him in the air before embedding itself into the wall, forming a small cracked hole. He slid back to a crouching position, his gun at the ready as another shot rang out and he felt a flaring pain through his shoulder.

Why always the shoulder? Alec thought miserably as he set his sights on a shadow almost directly above him standing on a grated catwalk, gun aimed down at the transgenic form. He must have had seen Max and Mole over here and not killed them simply because he knew Eyes Only wasn't female or half lizard...and Logan seemed to be his only target.

"I'll ask one more time..." The click of a safety being pulled back as the gun aimed at Alec through the darkness. "Where is Eyes Only?"

Alec smirked, quickly raising his own gun and aiming back.

"Couldn't make it. Had to go get a booster shot for his STD. He sends his regards though."

He tucked and rolled as another bullet flew past him and fired up into the rafters, grimacing as he heard a yelp followed something heavy hitting the metal bridge above him. A groan accompanied it with a scrapping noise as the man struggled to find his dropped gun and return fire but with Alec's transgenic eyesight and military training, he was no match. Alec raised his gun ready to shoot again.

"Did you get him?" Logan's voice rang out from the other side of the warehouse.

"Stay where you are!" Alec yelled, to both Logan and their mystery man. Neither listened to him as Logan's form stepped out from behind the crates, faltering at Alec's order and the man above them found his gun, aiming it at the human that was now standing in plain sight.

"Get down!" Alec yelled again, once again not caring which of the humans listened to him. If Logan got down and ducked, great. If the guy decided to give up and die, great. If they both listened to him, even better. But knowing the chances of that were one in a million and everything was going to Hell in a hand basket, he blurred forward, managing to knock Logan out of the path of a bullet for the second time that night.

He also felt the tiny piece of metal rip through his skin for the second time this night. 'Man this night sucks' He thought as he hit the ground and rolled onto his back, firing his gun once more into the rafters and hearing a satisfying thud as the body fell from the cat walks onto the ground, laying a few feet from them in a puddle of his own blood.

Alec felt his adrenaline rush wear off as he let his arms drop to the ground beside him and the gun clattered out of his grasp. The cold concrete he was laying on felt nice against his skin and he didn't bother to try and sit up, not even as Logan leaned over him.

"Alec? Alec can you hear me?"

"Unfortunately..." Alec groaned. He could feel his pulse throbbing through his body, leaving a slightly numb feeling in his arms.

Logan toke his answer as good enough and checked Alec over in the dim moonlight that filtered through the dusty windows above them. The wound in his shoulder didn't seem bad, however the bullet was still inside of him and it was going to hurt like a bitch to get out. He didn't know if his collarbone or shoulder stopped it from exiting the other side of his body and he didn't want to know, his whole right shoulder ached with a dull flame.

The second bullet had hit him in the side and he silently berated himself for not being quicker. Just another inch and it probably would have only grazed him. But as it was now, he could feel a broken rib as blood poured out of the gaping wound that Logan was leaning over trying to staunch.

"Come on; let's get you back to TC..." Logan mumbled as he grabbed a hold of Alec under his arms, trying to hoist him up.

The X5 male jerked in his grasp, letting out a sharp gasp and shocking the ordinary into dropping him right back onto the ground. He let out a hiss of pain as his battered body hit the floor. The comfortably numb feeling that had been leaking into his body was now replaced by searing hot pain igniting through his nerves, leaving him twitching slightly on the ground until he regained control over his limbs, taking deep breaths.

His vision was wavering back and forth in-between blurring and the sharp clarity he usually saw with. He could hear Logan speaking to him but the words were muffled as if they were underwater.

Red lights flashed through the dark night sky in the distance and he could pick up the wail of sirens. Shit...police. After all, these weren't abandoned warehouses. Someone must have been doing some late night inventory and heard the gun shots go off.

He felt Logan pulling on his arms again, weakly trying to get him to move. Sometimes he forgot how strong transgenics really were until he saw an ordinary human trying to lift something. That something at this moment happened to be his wounded body however, and Logan was unknowingly inflicting more damage than good while he was trying to help.

He could hear bits of Logan talking to him. Words like "come", "up", and "help", seemed to be repeated. But someone like Logan just wasn't strong enough to even drag 190lbs of transgenic muscle to safety much less carry. Even with the help of his exo-skeleton legs. If only he had exo-skeleton arms as well he might have a chance.

The word "Max" floated through his consciousness and he gathered the strength to grab Logan's wrist, willing him to stop.

"Just go." His voice sounded weak and raspy to his own ears and he hoped that wasn't how he sounded to Logan. It must just be the fuzzy hearing. Yea, right. He couldn't hear Logan's response but he could see him shaking his blonde spiked head. "Isn't the time to be righteous. Go before cops..."

Logan shook his shoulders and he mustered up a glare at the ordinary as pain spiked through his shoulder like a red-hot thorn through his veins. Go figure Logan would be too stubborn to leave anyone behind, but Max would boil Alec alive if anything happened to her precious roller boy.

Or worse...she'd be sad. Devastated. He couldn't risk Max's happiness. He couldn't let her live without her beautiful smile gracing her full lips. Logan had to get out of here, even if it killed him. He'd rather die than let Max live unhappy.

He squeezed Logan's wrist harder and looked up into his icy blue eyes. Or he thought he was anyways, he was having trouble focusing on anything but he defiantly saw the glint of glasses above him.

"Go." He shoved Logan's hands away from him. "I'll be fine. I just...I'll distract them. For you...long enough for you to get away." He fought the cough that was forming in his throat, and fought to keep his voice steady and strong. He was pretty sure it was easier to talk his way into girl's panties than it was to talk common sense into this man. "Van is too risky. Take the gun and go to the sewers."

He felt the pressure leave his shoulders as Logan lifted himself off of him and seemed to be debating following his orders. 'Come on...let it be my dying wish, just listen to me...just this once' Alec begged inside of his mind. Of course, if he let Logan know he was dying he'd never leave. He had to play this strong. Let him think that once he was gone he'd fake hurt for the cops only long enough to spring an attack on them and escape. It'd be the perfect plan if Logan would just go with it...he'd never have to know he was actually leaving Alec to die.

He resisted letting his eyelids drop knowing that once they shut he wouldn't have the strength to open them again. He could feel wetness underneath him that he knew was his own blood he was laying in. There was a faint buzzing in his head and he could feel his body growing colder by the second. He just wished he could have seen Max one last time. See her smile and hear her laugh...now that he was going to be gone it was going to be up to Logan once again to keep her happy.

This meant he needed to know the truth.

His bleary green eyes sought out Logan's form again that was tucking Alec's fallen gun into his waistband.

"Logan..." His voice sounded so far away, like a whisper. Could Logan even hear him? The ordinary leaned close to him, placing a hand over Alec's own cold hand to let him know he was there. He wished that touch was from Max instead and he wondered for a second if Logan hated that he could touch Alec but not Max. Maybe at this second they both hated that they weren't touching Max...how ironic.

"It was a lie..." He whispered this time, not because of weakness, but because he didn't want to get these words out. He didn't want to admit that Max had never been his and it had all just been make-believe for Logan's benefit. He didn't want to accept the fact that what he wanted so badly had never been real; he didn't want that to be his last thoughts. Instead he settled for thinking of how happy Max would be one day, and how Logan would make her smile without him. If he could just keep that image in mind, he could make it through these last few words. "We were never together...it was a lie." He felt like choking, or maybe he was choking. "Max still loves you."

He choked back a pained whimper that was building in the back of his throat as he let his hand finally fall away from Logan's grasp.

"Logan...please...Go. Make her happy."

The sirens got louder, streaming red lights through the windows. He couldn't hear Logan's response over the wailing noise but he hadn't been able to hear him for the past few minutes anyways. He vaguely felt Logan give his hand one last squeeze and the last thing he saw was Logan's retreating form bathed in red lights as he escaped out the door Max and Mole had previously exited into the night.

Knowing Logan was safe on his way back to Max, he let himself finally give in and drop into oblivion.

Max paced back and forth across the worn floor of the control room in Terminal City. Dix was typing away on a computer while Luke and Mole were fidgeting with a police scanner.

Minutes ago the scanner had crackled to life, as a cop reported hearing gunfire out by the warehouses off of Masonboro rd; the warehouses that her and Mole had just escaped from after the botched supply run. It requested back-up before static set in and the scanner cut out. Mole and Luke had been trying to tune back in since.

Gun fire...that couldn't be right. They had only been shot at once before they got away. And Alec and Logan had been right next to a door so they shouldn't have had any problems getting out either. But as the minutes ticked by and neither male walked through the doors she found herself getting more and more anxious.

What if something had happened to them because she left them behind? Had she mis-judged the situation? Had they needed back-up? She hadn't seen any reinforcements as she left but what if there had been others inside? What if Logan and Alec were hurt? Oh god...Alec...

What if she never got the chance to make this between them real? He'd been growing on her so quickly...what if it was over before it ever really started? His green eyes flashed in her memory and she squeezed her own brown eyes shut, refusing to wonder if she'd ever see those mischievous emerald eyes so full of life again.

After twiddling a few more dials the static on the scanner slowly turned back into vocalized words. Max rushed over, leaning over the table to listen to the small device as Dix turned in his squeaky chair to do the same.

"Emergency request for ambulance- two males, one identified as Ronald Piner - dead on arrival. One un-identified- critical condition. Stabilizer needed." Words crackled in and out over the speakers and Max slid into the chair next to the table, unable to stand up any longer.

Ronald Piner? Wasn't their contact's name Robert Parker? Was it an alias or had someone shown up in his place, or perhaps killed the poor man before he'd had a chance to show up at all? And they only reported one other male. Did that mean one of them had been able to escape? But who had escaped and who had stayed behind in critical condition?

She cringed as another thought slipped into her mind. Or maybe...Alec ran so many scams all over town and after the Jam Pony incident everyone seemed to know who Alec McDowell was. Had he made an alias for himself, a fake ID when he went outside of Terminal City? Was he the dead Ronald Piner and was Logan dying?

The thought of loosing two of the only people she cared about in one fatal swoop almost wrenched her heart out of her chest. She'd lost so much already...Tinga, Brin, Ben, Zach, Biggs and CeCe...the thought of adding Logan and Alec's names to that growing list was unbearable. The idea of Alec...her breath caught in her throat. The idea of Alec doing anything besides staying by her side forever was unbearable.

The doors to command burst open and she could smell the same sewage that covered her and Mole's scent as well. She hadn't bothered to shower yet; she wouldn't rest until she knew Alec and Logan were safe. But now she didn't even need up to know which of them was safe. She heard the familiar whirring of the exo-skeleton before he even spoke.

"Max...it was a trap..." He sounded genuinely shocked as if it had taken him until now to figure it out and he expected them to have not figured it out yet.

She snapped her head up, letting anger take over her emotions to drown out the desperate screaming inside of her that wanted to fall down and cry. Logan being here meant Alec was dead or dying somewhere. While she'd never want anything to happen to Logan, she'd secretly, selfishly rather it was him than Alec. Logan would be painful to loose and she'd never forget him. Just like she never stopped thinking of Tinga or Ben and the others. But if Alec was gone...the grief just might kill her.

"Who is Ronald Piner?" She snapped. The recognition of the name before confusion flickered through his blue eyes and she allowed herself a small relief that the name was real and wasn't Alec. That still gave her a small sliver of hope.

"Ronald Piner? Why? What about him?"

Mole stepped forward, sparing Max from speaking and she was grateful. It felt like swallowing needles trying to talk while fighting back tears.

"Whoever he is, he was just found dead inside that warehouse we were in. With someone else critically injured" the transhuman mocked the cop's voice from the scanner. "They were just called in." He leveled Logan with a glare that could burn holes through a wall. "Now tell me, that you did NOT leave pretty boy back there and he's going to walk through those damn doors behind you any second."

Logan hesitated, his eyes darting towards the door.

"Ronald...he worked for an underground gang. He gave Eyes Only information to bring down his company in exchange for help getting his family out of the country safe. But...it went wrong. Something tipped them off and we were only able to get him into Canada. His boss murdered his wife and daughter..."

"Well that's nice that we now officially know it was a trap to get revenge against Eyes Only but that's not the answer we were looking for princess." Mole snarled and Logan visibly winced as if he were expecting the lizard man to lunge forward and attack him at any second.

"Logan..." Dix spoke up. "Where you shot?"

Max froze and let her eyes travel over the rest of Logan's body. His hands were coated in red as well as a dark stain on his pants although he was standing perfectly fine as if he weren't wounded.

He hesitated before answering.

"No..."

His response slammed into Max and if she weren't already sitting she could have collapsed. Her legs felt like jelly and all the pain that had welled up inside of her turned into an unreal numb feeling that barely left her able to think straight. To think about anything except that Logan had blood on him that wasn't his. That Ronald Piner was dead. That someone was left behind to die and Alec wasn't here. That was Alec's blood covering Logan. Alec...

Mole snarled. "WHERE is Alec?"

Logan was keeping his stance calm but she could see the terror and panic reflecting in his eyes and hear his erratic heartbeat hammering against his chest.

"He...He told me to leave him. But he said he'd be fine! That he was just going to wait for...the right moment after I got away...he just...he..." Logan trailed off, unable to meet the gazes of any of the angry transgenics in the room.

"He was lying!" Max finally found her voice to scream at Logan. "He's Alec! He's always lying you idiot!" Stupid Alec, always getting himself into trouble with his lies. But why would he make Logan leave him behind?

Logan's eyes snapped up to level with Max. "Oh yeah? Well maybe you're a liar too."

Max's head snapped back as if she'd been sucker punched.

"Excuse me?" She growled.

"You heard me. Alec told me. He told me the truth."

"The truth about what exactly?"

"That you and him were never really together! That you lied to me about everything and you still love me!" Logan started yelling back at her. "Why? Why would you do that Max?"

"Why does this matter right now?" Mole spoke up, irritated that Logan was changing the subject but also sparing Max from having to answer these harsh questions and accusations right now.

Logan's shoulder sagged, the fight leaving him as quickly as it's come. His blue eyes darted back to the floor before looking back up at Max with a pained, apologetic expression in his eyes.

"Because he told me to make you happy."

Max froze. Time seemed to stand still, vibrating around Logan's words. Why would Alec have told Logan the truth? Why would he have told him to make her happy?

Unless...

Unless he knew he wasn't going to be around anymore.

"You shouldn't have left him behind..." She whispered, too low for Logan to hear because it wasn't him she was talking to. She was talking to herself. She had left Alec alone against an unknown enemy with an ordinary human that wouldn't be able to back him up or help him if things went south.

But she'd make up for it. She'd go and get him and bring him back to Terminal City. Alive. She had to. She wouldn't allow any other options.

End Chapter 1


	2. Catch My Fall

Chapter 2: Catch My Fall

Max all but ran outside the central building in Terminal City after just flying off the handle inside at Logan's news. She heard shouts behind her to come back but she ignored them. Alec was the only thing on her mind as the wind blew her hair around her face. She envied her hair, how it could always be so free and flail around even in situations where she had to keep her body completely still and her emotions in check. She'd give anything to let her entire body be like her hair in this second and just throw her arms in the air, scream and cry like any ordinary girl would in a situation like this.

It had been her decision to split up, to escape and evade rather than stand together and fight. The military training that had been drilled into her all her life argued that it was the right thing to do, but the painful breaking of her heart screamed she was wrong. The humanity and love in her couldn't believe she had left Logan and Alec behind.

And now Alec was captured. She didn't even know if he was still alive and while she couldn't bear to think of his bright green eyes dull and devoid of life, she couldn't bring herself to hope that she'd ever see his cocky grin again. He had been critically injured when the police found him. And if they hadn't killed him themselves when they found out he was a transgenic, he may have died from his wounds anyways.

She felt a tug as a scaly hand wrapped around her arm and she spun around to come face to face with Mole. Well, face to chest. The man was quite large and fearsome for a lizard trans-human.

She tried to jerk her arm away but the motion only made his grip tighter.

"What do you think your doing Max?" His voice sounded less like a growl without one of his beloved cigars in his mouth.

"What do you think? I'm getting Alec back. Now let me go."

"Great idea. So, you know where he is then? Because I bet he isn't back at that warehouse anymore. But surely you know where they toke him since you just ran off like that."

Max bit her bottom lip, not having a response and knowing 'It doesn't matter' wasn't an intelligent answer and would make her sound like a whiny little girl.

"And what are you going to do when you find him? We don't know how badly he's hurt but I know it'll take longer than a few hours to get him back up and running. Are you going to carry him back Max? Or is he going to drink a magic healing potion and fly back here with you on a magic carpet ride?"

"Well what do you suggest we do then?" Max snapped back, hating that she knew whatever the answer was, it would involve waiting around. But a new spark of hope that she had been trying to stop from forming ignited inside of her as Mole's ideas suggested that he believed Alec was still alive and would be OK.

"We find out the rest of what happened from Logan, every detail." His eyes shifted to the ground and she knew he didn't want to know all the gory details as much as she didn't. "We keep a tabs on the police scanner and check out any leads. Dix and Logan are going to hack into the hospitals and police stations surrounding the areas to see if anything comes in. But until then we have to-"

"Wait." She finished his sentence for him with a sigh and a cold feeling icing her gut. "But what if White or one of the other familiars have him?"

"We know they don't. Not right now anyways. So we're just going to have to find him before they do."

000001011110101 DARK ANGEL 000111101010110110

Alec's first thought was vaguely wondering why he was on a boat. The last thing he remembered was forcing Logan to leave as sirens and flashing lights in the distance grew closer. So why was he laying on a cold, hard boat while the waves rocked him back and forth making his world feel like it was spinning before he even tried opening his eyes?

However, once he opened his eyes, he discovered he was in fact- not on a boat. Instead he was laying in a dark cell that looked like it belonged in a prison if it hadn't been so dark and void of any other signs of human life. The rocking sensation was nausea building in the pit of his stomach as he rolled over and heaved the contents of his stomach onto the floor beside him, wincing as the movement pulled harshly on his bullet wounds and not failing to notice the flecks of blood that mingled in his previous lunch and dripped down his lip.

He brought a shaking hand to his lip and wiped the blood away, mentally cursing himself. Great, he wasn't dead. Judging from his surroundings he'd been captured, but by who, he had no idea. Either way Max was going to kick his ass when she came to rescue him. When, not if. He never debated for a second if Max was going to come for him, he knew she would. She was a leader, and compassionate even if she liked using him for a punching bag both verbally and physically. She could always be counted on to get anyone out of a tight situation, from an ex-mafia crook with information for Eyes Only, to White's own son, to any of the transgenic or trans-humans the poor girl now felt responsible for. Once someone had been captured, Alec had never seen her not do everything she could to get them back. She'd never leave him here if she knew where he was.

But that was where the problem laid. He ran a hand over his body acssessing the damage done to it. His shirt was gone and his bullet wounds had been patched up and were now covered with thick medical gauze. He could feel a broken rib and assumed it was causing the internal bleeding that he'd thrown up. Scratches from sliding across that cement floor and bruises from throwing himself around littered his arms and torso and although he couldn't see them in the dark he could image the molted dark purple coloring they had probably turned his skin.

He gingerly poked at the gauze on his stomach and winced at the flare of pain. Someone had obviously taken the time and care to mend his body, but who and why? He had been positive that those had been police lights he had seen, why would the cops keep him alive when most of the ordinary civilians were screaming to spill transgenic blood? Well here was a transgenic, so why wasn't his blood being spilled?

He knew it couldn't be White or his insane coven. They'd have sat back and watched him bleed out in the warehouse, slowly and painfully.

It was hard to make out his surroundings even with his superior eyesight. Things were still slightly blurry around the edges and he wondered if it was from blood loss or pain killers. He was defiantly in some sort of cell. Grey bricks made up three of the walls around him and to his left were thick iron bars spaced too closely together for escape, even if he could manage to bend or dislocate a few of them. Which in his current condition, he was ninety-eight percent positive he couldn't.

Through the bars he could see another cell, but empty. Silence pressed in on him from all sides and he highly doubted anyone else was in this hall of cells. Somewhere to the right outside of the cell he could see a light flickering from a bad bulb and giving the whole situation an ominous feel.

Oh how the mighty had fallen. A year ago he was fresh out of Manticore and the feeling of self-importance was almost over-whelming to the point where he didn't care about anyone but himself. Nothing mattered except for his feelings, and his safety. He did whatever he wanted to do, whenever he felt like doing it. He lived in the moment and never looked back. Aside from sleeping around with various women, he had even killed trans-humans and skinned their bar codes to save his own skin.

It was the soldier in him. It was years of ruthless training and fighting and clawing his way to the top of the pack. It was all the respect and blind obedience that came with the title of alpha male. It was X5-494. The number of a soldier that wasn't even human, and nothing more.

But that was before he'd fallen in love with Max and slowly let her over take his old painful memories of Racheal with new memories and the hopes of a future where they could be together. It was feeling like he was human, like he was more than just a number. It was Alec McDowell.

Well that had all ended when he shoved the X5 soldier 494 deep down inside of himself and let Alec surface. Alec who was more compassionate than he let show and would do anything to keep Max safe and happy.

And that meant letting her retreat out that door with Mole. That meant taking not one, but two bullets for Logan. That damn ordinary had better have gotten out of there OK or Alec had a feeling that he might not want Max to come rescue him after all. She'd strangle him if anything happened to her beloved cripple.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by the sound of a metallic door clanging open and shut on squeaky hinges. He struggled to get himself into a sitting position, allowing himself to openly wince before sliding the emotionless soldier mask into place to hide his weakness as heavy footsteps and the jingling of keys grew closer.

No light was turned on and Alec found himself squinting to see the dark outline of three figures through the bars. The one standing infront of and in-between the other two had a badge on his chest that Alec could barely see catching a glint in the flickering light down the hall.

"How are you feeling?"

The question caught him off guard since he had been expecting a violent interrogation right off the bat. He hoped that they couldn't see him as well as he couldn't see them and gripped the wound in his side that was protesting its current position.

"Just peachy. Guess I have to thank you for the patch-up job." He tried to keep his tone casual to hide the pain and suspicion flaring through him.

A low chuckle met his ears. "Your quite welcome. We need you in tip-top shape after all."

"And why would that be?" He raised an eyebrow in the dark.

"Don't worry about that for now. Just concentrate on getting your rest."

Alec opened his mouth to respond when one of the dark figures raised a gun and fired, catching him off guard. In his weakened state, his reflexes were sluggish and he felt a sharp stabbing sensation in his arm before he could dodge to the ground.

A warm, tingling feeling flooded from his arm as he yanked the dart out and threw it back at his captors before his world blurred into black.

000101111010101010 DARK ANGEL 11110100010010101001

Max had been pacing back and forth across the rather large room for the past four hours. Add the hour it had taken Logan to get back to the command center after the botched mission and that made five hours that Alec had been missing. That was five hours too long for Max's liking.

Logan had managed to hack into the hospital feed and Max had hovered over his shoulder, close enough to see the screens but outside of Logan's personal bubble in case the virus invaded it. Luke was next to them on a separate computer going through the admittance registry as Logan and Max scanned each and every single one of the cameras, looking for any sign of the injured transgenic.

Nothing.

There was no trace of anyone with multiple gun shot wounds being admitted or being taken care of in the hospital.

Logan set to work hacking into the hospital on the other side of town while Luke rolled his chair over to where Dix was working on getting into the police arrest files.

"Max."

She spun to face Dix as he got her attention, her long brown hair flying in an arc around her shoulders.

"What? What is it?" She briskly walked over to them, almost blurring in her hurry to cross the room.

Dix tapped the monitor he was looking at. "I managed to get in. I think I may have something but...you need to not jump to conclusions or panic until we know for sure..."

"That doesn't sound like good news..." She said softly, her heart starting to sink.

"Four hours and fifteen minutes ago, sector 6 police responded to an alert of gun fire in the warehouses off of Masonboro rd. The report goes on to state that upon their arrival they found one Dead on Arrival and one in critical condition."

"Yea yea, we already know that. It was on the police scanner." Mole grumbled from his spot in the corner cradling his rifle, where he hadn't spoken since he had dragged Max back into the building.

Max shot him a look to shut up so Dix could continue.

"It says he flat-lined before they could transport him to the hospital and they were taking the body straight to the mortuary." He glanced up at Max and seeing the horror-struck look on her face he continued hurriedly. "So, I wanted to be sure before I said anything so I checked out the Mortuary records. It was much easier to hack into." He smirked, obviously pleased with his skills.

"But the only bodies they had brought in today were two old men and a woman that had died from cancer. Nothing matching Alec's age or description and nothing from the cops. So I thought, maybe they were trying to keep it hush hush about him being transgenic so I hacked back into the police database and...found something interesting."

He trailed off trying to put his thoughts into words and Max unconsciously dug her nails into her skin as she wrapped her arms tight around her chest. If he didn't hurry up and get to his point she was going to explode. She didn't like where this was going. She didn't like that all signs were pointing to Alec not being alive anymore. She could feel herself crumbling away as her heart hammered in her chest, waiting for the breaking point that would shatter her soul and life as she knew it.

"They had...picked up someone new. Said it was from a Steel Heads gang attack. The person in question is a 6'1" male John Doe in critical condition from two bullet wounds, dirty blonde hair and freckles."

"That matches Alec..." She whispered, barely allowing herself to hope.

"Yea. And looking back over the scanner, there weren't any Steel Heads reported in the area. They usually congregate around Sector 8. Nothing was called in or anything, it just came out of nowhere. So what I'm thinking is-"

"That they filed a fake death report and a fake pick-up so they could switch Alec under a new ID... But why?" Max finished for him.

Dix shrugged. "That's where you've got me."

"Probably, they knew he was transgenic. I think the question we should be worried about right now is why they wanted to keep it quiet...what are they planning on doing with him?" Mole spoke up again.

"Dix, do you know which sector they're in now? Where they admitted him?" Max strode over to lean on the desk and read the text on the screen herself.

"Sector 4. Also makes you wonder why they transferred him all the way to a different police station...especially one that's so..."

"So what?" Mole asked, seeming to be the only one in the room besides Max with the guts to ask questions.

"It's a bit run down. Not the best station in the city. A piece of junk if you want to put it nicely. And the cops there have got a bit of a bad reputation."

Bad reputation was right. Max had to deal with the cops over there more than once. They were crooked, cold, and corrupt to the core. She heard more than one rumor of them raping prisoners, confiscating drugs to use on themselves, and even teaming up with criminals to make some quick cash. They held no hesitation in abusing their power and the ideas of what they could do to a captive and wounded transgenic was frightening.

"We need to get him out of there. Does it say if he's...stable?" She opted for the friendlier choice of words. If he's still alive? If he's dead?

Dix shook his head with a sad look in his eye. "Sorry Max...nothing except that he was admitted. Although, I doubt they would have gone through this much trouble for a guy that wasn't breathing anymore. Transgenic or not."

Max nodded. It was decided then. It had been decided since before they even found where Alec was that she was going to go get him back no matter where he was or what it toke. He was worth someone going above and beyond for.

"I'm going to go get Joshua and see if anyone else wants to come along. I may need some back-up on this..." Max tucked her hair behind her ear as she started planning her thoughts out loud.

"You know you've got me by your side." Mole grumbled, putting out his cigar and walking over to her.

"Wait-wait-wait" Logan cut into the conversation and Max realized for a second she had forgotten he had even been there. "What if he is dead and they're just using him as bait? They could be working with the Familiars, it could be a trap."

Max put her finger to her lip thoughtfully. "I know...I've considered that Logan. That's why i'm trying to get back-up-"

"So you know that there's a chance you're putting yourself and others at risk for a corpse?" The human gaped, blue eyes wide behind his glasses. "Max, I know your reckless but this...this could be suicidal."

Mole glowered at Logan, and both Dix and Luke were still in their chairs, looking uncertain. Max swallowed hard.

"You're right Logan." She said quietly with her brown eyes downcast.

Logan breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you Max." He smiled warmly at her, a smile she didn't return.

"No, i'm still going. The only chance here that I can't take is the chance of him still being alive and just leaving him there. If he'd dead..." She faltered. "Then...he still deserves better than having his body left in that god-forsaken place. I still have to bring him back. I have to... But you're right, it could be suicidal and even if I'M reckless, I can't put others in that danger."

"Max! You can't be serious! Going in alone is even worse!" Logan gaped at her, his jaw dropped wide open.

"She's not." Mole stepped closer to Max. "I already told ya that i'm coming and I haven't changed my mind." He clapped a scaly hand on her shoulder. "Things won't be the same without Pretty Boy around. It'd be quiet. We might get work done. Imagine the chaos that would result in." He lifted what could be considered an eyebrow in an attempt to roll his eyes. "Besides, no man left behind. We broke that rule once today. Gotta go back and fix it."

Max supposed this was the closest the lizard-like trans-human would ever get to emotional or admitting he liked Alec around so she accepted his help and mentally thanked him. If there was a trans-human in TC that she could trust besides Joshua, it was Mole. He may have been locked in the basement back at Manticore but he was still a skilled soldier and she could use his help. Plus she knew he wanted nothing better than to physically drag Alec back here and shake his military training sense back into him.

Logan called her reckless, but she wondered what he considered Alec to be. If taking two bullets for a guy you didn't even like wasn't considered reckless she didn't know what was. It made her look like she'd been playing it safe all her life. And from the way Logan was acting it was like he didn't even want the chance of getting Alec back alive. It was like on the roof with the gloves all over again. All he seemed to care about was forcing Max to come back to him. And he knew that if Alec was out of the picture, it'd be easier.

Did he perhaps see what she had taken so long to see herself? Had he watched her slowly fall in love with Alec? The thought made her feel guilty for a second, but only a second. She couldn't keep this charade up with him any longer. She had to sever these semi-romantic ties to him completely before things started to spin out of control again.

Go figure. With the normal, ordinary human everything was out of control, stressful and uncertain. But with the sociopathic soldier that risked himself daily without thinking twice everything was calmer when she was around him. He made her feel like she could breath again even if she was using her breath to yell at him. Like he could stop time for her if he tried to and they could just float together forever.

When this was over and Alec was safe with her again, she had to set this right. All of it. She couldn't deny her feelings any more and she couldn't avoid the subject. She'd have to tell Alec how she really felt. About how happy he made her just pretending to be her boyfriend and how badly she wanted it to be real.

"Max..." Logan started again, speak of the devil. "Don't do this. Alec told me to keep you happy. I can't do that if your dead...He wouldn't want that. Think of him."

Max snapped and raised her hand to slap him before Mole caught her arm before her skin made deadly contact on Logan.

"How dare you?" She snarled, her earlier quiet and submissive tone gone, and replaced with venom on the tip of her tongue. "He risked his life for you! And you won't even consider repaying that and trying to save him? He wouldn't be in the position if it weren't for you! It was your contact that you screwed over that tried to kill us! You coming along with us! You walking out of your cover and into danger!" It wasn't right for her to place all the blame on Logan's shoulders but damn if it didn't make her feel better to finally vent all the pent up stress and anger she'd been feeling.

"As for keeping me happy?" Max huffed. "He's an idiot. If he's gone there's nothing in this world that will keep me happy. So you want to make me happy? Go find the fastest way to get into the building and an escape route."

She toke deep breaths to calm herself at Logan's stricken deer-in-headlights face. But something else was nagging on her mind that wouldn't let her stop there.

"And you're an idiot too if you didn't realize he was only saying those things because he thought he was dying."

Something in Logan's expression made her freeze and furrow her eyebrows together. Mole caught onto it too because his grip on her wrist tightened, almost painfully.

"You knew." He growled, taking his cigar out of his mouth and pointing it at Logan. "You knew he thought he was dying. And you still left him there?"

Luke pushed his rolly chair back away from the furious transgenic and trans-human that were now facing the normal male in front of them as if he was scared they were going to start spitting fire and wanted to get out of range.

"Yea." Logan had the courage to look up, but not the guts to look either of them in the eyes. "I knew he thought he was dying, and I knew he was right. I was there! That's why...I'm sorry, but that's why I know this is all for nothing. I know he's dead. There was too much blood. He was too pale and his breathing was already too shallow and ragged. And there was no way I could have gotten him out of there! He couldn't even move! I couldn't carry him- I mean, I'm ORDINARY! Isn't that what you guys always call me anyways? I'm not super strong, i'm not super fast, i'm not..." He finally met Max's eyes, a deep pain reflecting in his blue eyes. "Apparently i'm not anything...to anyone."

Max broke eye contact first, unable to look at him anymore. It had taken some harsh words and accusations, but Logan's final words said it all. He knew. He knew probably better than Max that she was in love with Alec and she'd have to go and do anything and everything she could to get him back, even if it was just his body. And if she brought him back not breathing...he knew she'd never be the same. They'd never be the same regardless of the out come. They hadn't been the same for a long time now and there was no going back.

But she meant what she'd said earlier. Alec deserved better than having his body rot in some dump of a prison to be cut open and experimented on or dumped in some back woods. They'd bring him back and give him the proper military funeral he deserved as the solider he once was. And she knew Mole himself would make sure he went off with a proper twenty-one gun salute, even if they had to go and steal more guns to make it happen.

She was scared to hope that they'd find Alec still in one piece but it was all she could cling to in order to keep herself together. If she allowed herself to believe he was dead and they were only going to retrieve a body she'd break down on the floor right here and now and wouldn't be able to get back up.

No, she had to believe that when she found Alec, she'd see his bright green eyes again, so full of light and life. That she'd be able to feel his heart beating in his chest and hear his smart-alec remarks once again.

0000101011001011 DARK ANGEL 0001010100101111010

When Alec awoke again he was momentarily confused as to why everything was so bright and white. He blinked a few times and his eyelids and limbs felt heavy and fuzzy as an after-effect of the drugs. It felt like his head was pulsing with the beat of his blood flowing through his body and he could only barely feel the burning pain of the two wounds. They were dulled to a slightly comfortable numbness so he could only assume the drugs were still in his body. Super.

He tried to reach up to prod at his shoulder wound only to find that his wrists were tightly strapped down to a table as were his ankles. Super as well. He now realized that the bright whiteness he saw when he first opened his eyes was the white tiles of a ceiling and the bright florescent bulb above him. He could smell perfume over the sterile smell of anti-biotics and shifted his eyesight to the right to see a woman jotting down notes on a clipboard.

"One hour and fifteen minutes. That's a record."

Alec tried to lift his head at the familiar voice, the same voice that had spoken before in his cell before he'd been tranquilized, but the movement made the world spin and blend into shades of white before he let his head drop back to the table.

"A record for what? Who are you? What do you want?" Alec growled through his teeth.

The man that the voice belonged to walked over to his side. He was a rather short man, probably at 5'11". He had blonde hair with flecks of gray along his sideburns that was slicked back and fell to his neck. His brown eyes were hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses and he as currently wearing a lab coat over his military uniform.

He pulled a stool over next to where Alec was restrained on the table and sat on it, twiddling his thumbs.

"Recovering from that tranquilizer of course. Humans take three to four hours to wake up from that. Then again, your blood is replenishing and wounds are healing rather quickly as well."

He cleared his throat and continued, "I suppose manners are due after our previous encounter in Sector 4's prison. I had to go through quite a bit to obtain you, after all. They found you in Sector 6 and saw your bar code...they were going to let you die but I had put a warrant out for any living captured transgenic so they called me instead. They had to transfer you to Sector 4 so I could get you, it was the only place that we could make the trade. But now that we're out of that rat-infestation we can take our time." He reached out and patted the strap on Alec's left wrist as Alec tried to jerk away from the man.

"My name is Avery Hastings. I've served in the U.S. Military almost my entire life working my way through the ranks. That's why i'm in charge of this." He lifted his hands, motioning to the room around them. "We're at war. Being a solider yourself, i'm sure you know what the first rule is before going into a battle."

"Go piss before you get in the car 'cause we're not pulling over?"

Avery tilted his head and glared slightly. "Cute. I see they taught you creatures sarcasm." Alec glared right back and being called a creature. "But no. The first rule is know your enemy. But unfortunately, we don't know a thing about you things."

"Are we really going to play the name-calling game here? We're human dammit, just like you." Alec jerked at his restraints again, feeling the effects of the drug slipping away and his strength returning. He just needed to keep this freak talking so he wouldn't notice his escape attempts.

Avery's brown eyes darkened, looking almost black in the bright light of the room. "No. You're not. You're test-tube abominations and you don't deserve the oxygen you're breathing."

"So why am I still breathing then hot-shot?"

"I told you, we don't know anything about your kind. We need to find out and we can't run the necessary exams if you're dead. We need to know how much you can physically take before you break and there's no sense in breaking something that's already broken beyond repair. We'd been trying for months now to capture one of you alive. Some escaped, some were accidentally killed. So imagine my joy when I heard that they'd found one just laying in a warehouse and we were able to save you. It was like Christmas came early."

"So you're going to run tests on me? Like some freakin lab rat? I may have alot of DNA in me pal, but rat is NOT one of them."

"No, more like...an experimental chimp." Avery put a finger to his chin thoughtfully. "I suppose that means you need a name."

"I have a name. It's Alec."

"No no no, that won't do, that's a human name. I'm thinking... Gir. Since you seem to growl so much." He reached out to touch Alec's hair and Alec proved his theory right by growling at him and jerking harder on the straps, no longer caring if he noticed he was getting free, just wanting nothing more than to snap Avery Hasting's neck in that second.

"Oh dear me, It looks like the dosage ran out rather fast than I expected." He tsked and he snapped his fingers to the nurse who brought over a small syringe. "It's a good thing we're not using those weak medical pain killers."

Alec's green eyes widened as the needle sunk into his arm. "What the hell are you putting in me?"

"Oh... a little of this, a little of that. A little muscle relaxer, a little morphine."

"You're LITERALLY drugging me?" Alec snapped, his struggles growing weaker again against the drug cocktail rushing through his system. "Are you insane?" The last part came out slurred as his eyes started drifting shut once again.

"No, not at all. We've just already started our first experiment on you. We need to see how high of a tolerance your kind can take." He felt fingers run through his hair like an owner petting a dog and mentally cringed, disgusted that he couldn't break the man's hand off for touching him.

"Good night Gir."

The last coherent thought Alec could make out before the darkness consumed him again was that he would choke the air from the man's lungs for daring to re-name him if it was the last thing he did. For taking away the name that Max had given him, even if it had been out of spite. It had connected them and made him feel like a real person for the first time even if he had still been inside the walls of Manticore. It had given him an identity and a life and it was the single greatest thing anyone had ever done for him and this man actually dared to replace that.

He had to get out of here. Soon. He could only hope that the others would be able to track the movements Avery had made to get him to wherever he was now and it was before he managed to do too many experiments on him. If they killed him, fine, so be it. He couldn't risk this man or the government he worked for finding out the transgenic weaknesses and using it against them.

Sometimes doing the right thing really sucked.

End Chapter 2

My Microsoft Word crashed so I had to use 's editor. Apparently it doesn't work so well because after the 3rd read over there were still alot of errors. I apologize about that, I've edited it a fouth time myself and had one of my friends edit it as well so I hope everything is fixed now. Thank you everyone that pointed out the mistakes. I hopefully won't have this problem with the next chapter I upload.


	3. Your Princess is in Another Castle

Chapter 3: Your Princess is in Another Castle

In the end, it had been Joshua and Bullet who had joined Max and Mole to go and retrieve Alec and they moved out as soon as the sun began to set so they'd have the cover of darkness as their allay. Joshua had been stubborn on the subject, not caring if he drew attention and only kept repeating "Medium fella is Joshua's friend. Joshua help." as his argument. Joshua had an unusually strong bond with the male X5 and Max let the argument slide, knowing she wouldn't be able to stop him.

Bullet was a part of an X6 unit that had escaped after Manticore blew up and with Max and Alec's help, they ran away to hide and start new lives in Canada. However, with news of Terminal City and the growing war against transgenics, they had decided to come back as a unit and help their kind in the fight. Ever since Bullet had lead his unit into danger and gotten shot in the leg for not listening to Alec when he had tried to warn them it was a trap, he had looked up to and regarded the older soldier as a superior and the alpha of their pack so as soon as he heard that his leader had been captured he jumped at the chance to join them and help get him back.

Raulph had wanted to come along too, but remembering how she'd gotten her name and the fact that they didn't know what kind of shape Alec would be in, they'd convinced her to stay behind. The last thing they needed was a soldier puking on the battlefield in the middle of a stealth retrieval mission and some people just weren't cut out for gore. Even if they were transgenics.

Sector 4's police station was a dark building with gray bricks lining every wall and a rusted chain link fence surrounding it with barbed wire on top. Max had once had to break into the vehicle impound here to get back her beloved Kawasaki Ninja that they had scammed away from her once so she knew what to deal with.

They were lazy, but alert. They were the kind of cops that shot first and asked questions never. She'd never actually been inside the building before, but if it was anything like the one she'd been in before it's be over-crowded with criminals, homeless, druggies and filled with their yells and arguing.

But as she slipped to the cold walls and blended in with the building's shadows, motioning that it was safe for Mole and Bullet to join her, she was alarmed at how quiet it seemed inside. 'Lights out' meant nothing to these people, just because it was dark out didn't mean they'd stop what they were doing.

Logan had reluctantly come through on what Max had asked of him and found a blue print of the prison, mapping out the high security cells and marking all the entrances and exits with the quickest route.

He had refused at first, stubbornly not wanting to have anything to do with a mission that would put Max in danger. Max had been about ready to strangle him and Mole was going to let her, but it had been Fixit who came to the rescue and, well, fixed it. The girl had a way with her tongue as well as machinery.

Despite her height and that she was younger than Max, another one of the X6 unit; she'd marched right up to Logan with her hands on her hips and glared up at the ordinary. She'd demanded to know out loud what everyone in the room had been thinking, why was Max only allowed to go on dangerous missions for him? And why was he so against getting Alec back, was it because he felt threatened by him? Why was he only willing to accept Alec's 'dying wish' to keep Max happy when that meant being with Max? Making her happy should mean doing whatever he could for her, and not just what he felt like complying with at the time. And he'd given Alec his word. Was he going to go back on it now and throw a temper tantrum because things weren't going his way?

She hadn't given him any time in-between questions to give an answer and he wouldn't have had one anyway. She left him, and most of the room, speechless as she ran a hand through her flippy hair and walked back over to Max, patting her superior on the shoulder and whispering that it was all hers from here with a small smile.

Fixit, however, had also stayed behind to help Dix re-wire some of the security cameras they had set up around Terminal City. Max and Bullet scaled the side of the building on an old water pipe to climb through a broken window as Mole stood guard outside their exit and Joshua stayed hidden in the woods, as a back up for Mole and re-enforcement if things went sideways. She could see his bulk from the second floor where they climbed inside and hoped that it was only because of her transgenic eyesight and any passing guards wouldn't notice him.

Despite Joshua almost snapping White's spine in half and his brute strength he'd displayed while fighting the familiars, Max couldn't help but look at him as the sweet puppy she'd met down in the basement, that painted such beautiful and deep paintings and liked the curl up in a soft recliner and read. She knew Joshua wasn't physically weak, but she'd witnessed his break down after Annie's death and knew he didn't handle loosing people close to him well. Especially since they were the first real friend's he'd ever had.

She secretly wished he hadn't come. If they didn't bring Alec out alive, she didn't know if she'd be able to hold herself together. And allowing herself to break would be alot easier if she didn't have a gentle giant to comfort over the same loss.

She spun around and blurred to the end of the hallway, leaving Bullet momentarily guarding the window. Peeking out into the next hallway, she saw that both ways were completely clear, completely silent, and dark. Not even the lights were on.

She signaled for Bullet to stay put while she toke down one of the halls and around the corner. Nothing. Her heart started beating faster as she re-traced her steps and ran back down the other way. Nothing.

Going back, she waved her hand and Bullet was instantly by her side.

"What's going on?" He asked.

Max shook her head. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I thought it was weird that we didn't run into any guards outside but...there's none in here either. No lights, no sound, nothing." She listened harder for any sounds at all besides Bullet's breathing beside her and knew he was doing the same. When their eyes met, they both knew that neither of them had any answers.

"Now what?" He whispered back.

Max bit her bottom lip. Even if the building was abandoned, the report had said that Alec had been taken here. Why would they bring someone to an empty prison? Her mind answered 'because then no one can hear them scream' but she refused to listen to it.

"We still check out all the cells. Meet back here in 20. Whistle if you find anything or get into trouble."

He nodded and she watched him vanish down the stairwell at the end of the hall. When they had originally planned this she'd counted on the loud inmates covering up the military distress whistle but now in the dead silence she was worried about the noise echoing down the empty halls and alerting more trouble to them.

She rushed through the halls, carefully scanning each cell completely, for the slightest trace of Alec. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. At every empty room her heartbeat escalated only to fall in disappointment and when she got to the final holding cell in the basement she let her body slump to the floor in defeat, the flickering light at the end of the hall sending eerie shadows over her.

Alec wasn't here, and she wasn't sure if he ever had been. It seemed like this whole thing had been a giant goose chase from the start. Too many things didn't make sense, like why they had re-identified Alec and transferred him out of Sector 6 in the first place? Why they reported bringing him here? Why wasn't he here now? She groaned. What if he had actually died like they originally said? Maybe the rest had all been a hoax, or they'd read something wrong. Did they get the sector number wrong? Had White somehow beaten them to the punch and captured Alec before they knew?

As if answering her questions, her phone vibrated in her pocket, breaking the silence.

"Luke? What's going on?"

"No, it's Fixit." A female voice on the other end responded.

Max furrowed her brows. "Fixit?"

"Yea. Luke found something, he had Dix come up and check it out and they asked me to call you. Look Max, I don't think Alec is there anymore...if he ever was."

Max let her head drop. "I know...there isn't anyone here." She whispered, defeat in her tone. "Do you have any new leads?"

The other end hesitated and there were a few seconds of crackling static through the phone. "No...But that Sector 4 prison got shut down last week. No one had been there for days. Apparently the higher up authorities got tired of the way they were handling things, transferred everyone out and fired the staff..." She let the sentence drop.

"Which means Alec was probably never here..."

"I wouldn't say that."

Max perked up. "What do you mean?"

"We can't say for sure, but the call to transfer whoever they picked up defiantly came in last night. Sector 3 police were called in to collect the person from the premises and confront whoever was bringing him in but by the time they got there they were gone. They made two arrests, former officers Duwayne and Faulk. They were questioned but all they would answer was that the person who had been apprehended was a high class criminal and they had gotten paid by someone higher up to hold him for them until they got there. They wouldn't give a name of who paid them off or location though."

"Then it sounds like we need to pay Duwayne and Faulk a little visit and see if we have better luck getting it out of them." Strength returned to her voice. She'd make the scum bags pay for selling Alec off like a piece of scrap metal on the black market. She hated the idea of letting the soldier 452 out but she'd do whatever it toke to get them to tell her where Alec was. Even if they had to scream and choke on the words.

As she cleared her head and stood up, she caught the fading scent of something she'd missed in her frenzied state when she first rushed through here. Something that she was sickened that she could recognize. But after being with Alec when he had been shot helping her rescue the 'Gill girl', then shot again at the Jam Pony siege and then around Logan while he had been covered in it less than a day ago...she recognized the scent of Alec's blood. Metallic with traces of wolf and hawk DNA. Different from her own cat and shark mixed DNA, but Manticore all the same.

She walked into the cell where the smell was strongest and adjusted her catlike eyes to see the dark, dried puddle on the floor. He hadn't been here for hours, they had been too late.

She reached down and let her fingers drift over the stain and felt her heart constrict in her chest.

"Please be ok Alec...I'll find you, and I'll get you back. I swear." She said aloud to the empty cell that once held the single most important thing in her life.

110100001010011010 DARK ANGEL 11000001010010010101

Alec was already starting to get really tired of waking up groggy and in a new location. He rolled onto his back and was pleasantly surprised to find a mattress underneath him as well as a thin blanket pushed up against the wall.

He reached to gingerly feel his wounds that were slowly healing and was even more surprised to find that they were free. He finally opened his wide eyes and looked around. He was in the corner of a small room with wooden floorboards that looked as if someone had dragged a heavy bed and desk out of it. He supposed whoever had stuck him in here was ok with him having a mattress and blanket, but nothing else that could be broken and turned into a weapon. Nothing else remained in the room although the wall had several rectangular sections where the paint was slightly brighter, as if posters had been there for years until yesterday.

There was a window far above his height and covered in thick bars but through it he could see that the sun was just starting to come up, meaning that it had now been over 24 hours since he had first been captured.

His throat felt tight and as he sat up he heard a clanging noise, like a chain rattling. His eyes focused on a chain attached to the wall that lead to him and he put a hand to his neck, realizing that the chain was attached to a steel collar that was around his neck.

"You've GOT to be freakin' kidding me." He muttered angrily to the empty room and gave the chain a tug to try and break it free from the wall only to wince as the movement tore at his shoulder wound and his muscles strained against the remnants of the drug cocktail they'd injected into him.

He ignored the flaring pain in his shoulder as he yanked on the chain again and again, smirking as he heard bits of plaster crack away where it was held to the wall. He ignored the click of a lock turning in the door behind him as he tugged on the stubborn chain again.

"I'd stop that if I were you." A younger voice than Avery's was behind him and Alec let out a growl, ignoring him and yanking the chain again. He'd pay attention to him as soon as he was free so he could smash his face in and escape.

The collar around his neck beeped and let out a warning tingle before sending a jolt of electricity through him and he dropped the chain, doubling over in pain and grinding his teeth to stop himself from yelping out loud at the sudden agony.

"A-A shock collar?" He panted. "You've gotta... be kidding me..." He growled for the second time. "Just how insane are you people?"

The man in front of him now looked no older than a teenager with curly brown hair and freckles covering his face. He wore a long white lab coat and held a clipboard tucked against his chest and a small remote in the other.

"Sorry, but it was General Hastings orders. It prevents you from escaping as well as tests how much electricity your kind can withstand so we'll know what voltage to set the tazers to." He tucked the remote into his pocket and jotted down a few notes on the clipboard.

"Can you tell me how your feeling?" He asked, glancing up at the transgenic on the floor in front of him, breathing heavily.

"Bite me." Was Alec's only response.

The kid tilted his head and wrote something else down. "I suppose all that growling and biting comes from your wolf DNA?"

Alec didn't answer, only glared back. So they had taken a DNA sample while he'd been out. He could only imagine what else they had done while he had been strapped to that medical table earlier and decided that he momentarily didn't want to know.

"Your DNA also has traces of hawk in it."

"I know what kind of DNA I have. Does yours have any asshole in it?"

"General Hastings did say you were a feisty one. Can you tell me what effect your hawk DNA has on you?"

Alec narrowed his green eyes. He didn't like the word feisty. Feisty was used to describe hot chicks with a temper, or little purse dogs that had too much bark and no bite. Original Cindy was feisty. Yorkies and Dachshunds were feisty. Alec was not feisty. Alec was going to let X5-494 out of the cage and rip someone's head off.

"Well hawk DNA gives me the ability to grow freakin feathers and fly every full moon."

The kid, who Alec had now named Curly inside of his head because of his hair, regarded him for a second, as if trying to judge if he was serious or not before scribbling something else on his papers. If Curly actually toke him seriously for a second it made him wonder what exactly the government was telling everyone that transgenics could do.

"A while back we toke DNA samples from another transgenic that had Eagle and Horse DNA in them. Can you explain why you have different DNA?"

"Different DNA? Huh. Imagine that, it's like we're different from each other or something. Can you tell me why you and Avery Asshole have different DNA?"

Curly sighed. "Because we're human. I'll re-phrase the question. Can you tell me why Manticore created each of you with different DNA?"

This kid was really starting to push his buttons and if the chain was long enough and he didn't have this shock collar on he'd be choking on his own front teeth as Alec smashed his fist into his mouth. As the situation was however, he just sat there glaring at Curly, who he now noticed had a tag on his jacket labeled Brent. Nah, he liked Curly better. If they could re-name him, he could re-name them too.

He vaguely wondered who they'd gotten the Eagle/horse DNA from. It didn't match anyone he knew from his unit, or anyone he currently knew in Terminal City.

Manticore had experimented around with different DNA in each of the transgenics, trying to find which had better qualities for the battlefield, which were better for stealth, or which were better at diagnostics. When they'd created units, they made sure that no two transgenics had the same DNA stream in them to amplify the variation of skills their unit would possess. This allowed them to literally create an entire army with only a handful of soldiers.

Surely these guys didn't think everyone from Manticore had been created with the same DNA? You could tell just from looking at the trans-humans like Joshua and Mole that they'd had literally dozens of different animal DNA to experiment around with.

He'd been given wolf DNA, literally created to be a leader of a pack, good at formulating plans of attack, stealth assassinations and tracking. His hawk DNA gave him slightly better eyesight than the usual transgenic, but he'd never tell these crack-pots anything about that.

Max had cat and shark DNA, giving her sight in the dark as well as amazing balance, stealth and the ability to always land on her feet. Unfortunately it also meant she went into heat quite often, which was a problem since Manticore had chosen to use cat DNA in most of its DNA cocktails and sometimes things could get chaotic around Terminal City when one of the females went into heat. Her shark DNA allowed her to go days without sleep, which probably caused her some personal issues at night.

He had smelled the bear DNA in Zach during their brief encounter which explained his over-protectiveness of his siblings. Zero, one of the freed X6's Alec had once helped reeked of snake and mongoose DNA that explained his conflicting personality and Raulph had once told him she had Cheetah and Falcon in her, making her good for quick and smart getaways. He was pretty sure Fixit had rat and fox DNA that made her both intelligent and loyal as well as a crafty and strong fighter and he'd overheard the two girls laughing over the fact that Bullet had kangaroo DNA mixed with his wolf DNA in him which was why he was in such a sour mood for months after he'd been shot in the leg and always following Alec around like a puppy needing a pack.

That was all he knew about any of the other soldier's DNA patterns and he quickly cleared it all from his mind in case they had any machines like they did back in Psi-Ops. He'd rather forget it forever than let these goons force anything out of him in case they put any other weird drugs with unknown side effects into his body.

He'd never allow himself to put anyone in danger. Especially not Max or the younger X6's. The selfish X5-494 that was willing to do whatever it toke to stay alive had left the building long ago. He was done selling out his friends. He'd rather die. He'd proven that point long ago when he plunged his knife into the ground instead of Max's heart even though he knew the action literally meant his time was up and the explosive in his neck would kill him. And he'd prove it again if he needed too.

He mentally chuckled inside of his head. How many times was he going to find himself in a situation and realize he might literally die for Max? It seems to be a re-occurring ordeal. Oh well, third time is the charm after all. His only regret would be not getting to see Max one last time and tell her how he really felt about her.

"I have to warn you that I have been given permission to use violence if necessary to get answers out of you."

"Violent interrogations huh? Imagine that." Alec smirked. Curly could bring it on. Pain was something he was good at handling. Pain would distract him from what the question was so he could hide the answers deep in his subconscious. Pain would keep him leveled to the real world. It was the drugs they kept giving him that he couldn't handle. The feeling of not having control over his body, of not knowing who or where he was or even which way was up.

"Did Manticore program different DNA into you for different specific jobs?"

"Yeah I already told you. Those of use with bird DNA can sprout wings and the ones with cat DNA go into these sexy heat periods where they literally climb all over the nearest male. Mrrowl."

His answer was rewarded with a sharp punch to the side of his face causing his head to whip to the side unexpectedly even though he'd been telling half the truth. He flexed his jaw and looked back up at Curly in defiance. So the nerd could pack a punch. Big deal, he'd been through worse.

"Can you tell me why some of you have animalistic appearances?"

"Can you tell me why you're wearing that human mask?" Another sharp punch this time to the other side of his face.

"So they let you watch movies back at your base?" Curly lifted an eyebrow, obviously catching the movie reference Alec had answered with even if he had punched him again regardless. He flipped to a new page on his clipboard and scribbled something else down.

"What do you keep writing down anyway? Everything? If I start singing My Sharona are you going to write that down?"

Curly just continued to move his pen across the paper without looking up. "So they let you listen to music as well?"

"Nah. I was kidding. I don't even know anyone named Sharona."

Curly looked up at him for a second before moving his pen like he was crossing something out and furrowed his brows.

"Could you please just keep the answers straight?"

"I'm supposed to be answering something?" Alec blinked his eyes trying to look confused and innocent but it had never been a look he had been good at mastering and instead of a physical punch this time, he felt the familiar tingle around his neck before jolts of electricity shook through his body again.

When Curly replaced the remote in his pocket Alec fell forward, catching himself with his hands before he hit the floor. His body was shaking as if he were having a seizure and his breaths were coming in ragged breaths as his heart hammered faster than usual in his chest.

"Ya know what buddy?" He struggled to keep his voice even through his pants for breath and twitches. "When I get free I'm going to put this damn collar on you, take that remote, turn it on and then shove it up your-"

"Shall we try a new tactic?"

Alec glared up at Curly who merely smiled, what probably could be considered a sweet smile if he as a sweet kid. But instead the sight of his lips twisted upwards was sickening.

Curly rapped on the door behind him three times, paused, and then knocked again. It opened to reveal three large men, all with shaved heads and the same tight black shirts and baggy army pants.

"Please don't try anything Gir. I wouldn't want to have to use the collar again." Clearly the sick kid was enjoying watching Alec writhe in pain. Where did they find these people? Whoever had said that transgenics lacked humanity clearly had never met Avery Asshole or Curly. How unfair was it that these were the kinds of people that were allowed to be considered human? Demons in human skin would be a better classification.

Green eyes darted from guard to guard as two of them toke each side of him and restrained him under his arms and the third stood watch over them as back-up.

Feeling his arms being twisted behind his back as he was roughly hoisted to his feet, Alec decided in a split second that he wasn't taking this laying down - shock collar be damned. He quickly calculated in his head how long it would take for Curly to react and get to the remote in his pocket as he suddenly lunged forward, dropping to one knee and jerking his arms forward and out of the guards grasps. The motion threatened to dislocate both of his arms but with success he felt a fleeting second of triumph as they both crashed forward on either side of him, scrambling to get back to their feet and regain their hold on him.

He tucked and rolled forward and then dodged to the side to avoid the third guard who had jumped forward to grab him around the chest. Before he had another second to move again he realized he'd miscalculated Curly's reflexes as the shock collar forced the electric jolts through his body, twice as hard as before.

Alec's body fell to the ground with a thud, his limbs still shuddering and jerking on the ground long after the shock was turned off and choked on the air he was desperately trying to draw into his lungs as one of the guards practically sat on him to keep him pinned.

"Take him to the fourth examination and lock him in until he's ready to cooperate." Curly ordered the guards as Alec felt himself being lifted once again, still twitching, and dragged out of the room and down the hallway.

0010101111101000101 DARK ANGEL 111000010111010010101

Max let Bullet accompany her to Evan Faulk's address. She hated to admit it, but she felt safer with someone to back her up even if it was a slightly younger generation. Besides, Faulk lived in the middle of Sector 4 on the top floor of a crowded apartment building. There would have been no way she could have brought Mole or Joshua with this many people around. Just her being out here was risky enough after everyone had seen the footage from the Jam Pony siege and knew her face.

Fixit had, once again, fixed the problem slightly. She'd gone to Dodge, a female X6 with a taste for the theatre and owned a wig collection to procure a medium length wavy, dark red wig for Max to wear while she was out. Putting it on gave her a slightly Irish appearance and with the baseball cap and shades as extra insurance in her disguise; she felt much safer walking through the crowds of Ordinaries.

Their first stop had been Leonard Duwayne's small ramshackle house but it'd been empty - completely. It looked like he had moved out and in a rush, probably taking the money he'd been paid for Alec and running with it.

She had punched a hole in the wall out of frustration. There went one lead on finding Alec. If this next guy, Faulk, didn't have anything or was gone they'd have to start the search all over again with no idea for new leads and the thought of that made Max want to rip her hair out.

Her and Bullet stopped in front of #701 and paused to glance at each other.

"Should we knock? Bullet asked.

"No." Max glared at the door as if she could see the man on the other side already and lifted her leg to crash it into the door, breaking the wood off its hinges and allowing them instant access into the rundown apartment.

A man with cropped black hair in a white wife-beater tank and grey sweat pants jumped up from a brown couch, spinning to face them while reaching for a gun he kept on the coffee table.

Max dashed into the room, hearing the wooden door crack beneath her feet as she ran and jumped over the couch, placing a kick to the man's chest.

He toppled to the ground and Max stood over him, poising her foot over his neck and putting just enough pressure on it to make him panic but not to hurt him.

"You must be Evan Faulk."

Evan's blue eyes were wide and sweat was forming on his forehead as he tried to answer but choked on his words. Instead, he nodded his head as much as he could with Max's foot under his chin.

"You used to work for Sector 4 police?"

Another pitiful attempt at a nod was his response.

"You sell a hurt transgenic male, 6'1" dirty blonde hair and green eyes last night?"

He tried to shake his head but Max put more pressure on his neck until his eyes bugged out and he squirmed, his hands clawing at her ankle to try and dislocate her.

"Try again."

He nodded his head but this time managed to choke out the words "Didn' know - eyes green - eyes closed-"

Max rolled her eyes. "Well let me paint you a picture, their green. Beautiful grass green with hazel flecks." She crouched down and grabbed his short hair with her fist. "And you'd better tell me where I can find those pretty eyes and you'd better tell me I'll be seeing them again or you're gonna be in a world of hurt tiger."

She released her hold on him and stood up as he gasped for air, his hands massaging his throat.

"Jeez, lady, what's the big idea?" He muttered in a raspy, strained voice.

"The big idea is that you just sold a very dear friend of mine. And you're going to pay for it- and not in cash- if you don't tell me where he is."

Evan's eyes darted back and forth between Max and Bullet who stood guard by the broken door frame. Weighing his chances of fighting them, and apparently deciding the odds weren't in his favor, he sat up and toke a deep breath.

"I dunno where he is lady. All I know is Sector 6 found him and responded to a notice some five-star General put out wanting a live transgenic."

A small hope flared in Max. A live transgenic. That must mean Alec was alive still and her stomach twisted in both joy and terror. Happy that Alec was still breathing and she had a chance of bringing him back but terrified of what a general of the highest rank would want with a transgenic.

"This General got a name? You know what he wanted?"

"He didn't tell us his name...me and my partner were just supposed to stabilize and hold the kid until he got there. Split the profit with the cops that brought him in. Dunno what he wanted with him but his badge said A. Hastings."

When Max glared at him he held up his hands in surrender.

"That's all I know I swear! I was just the middle man! I swear! We patched up his wounds with what medical equipment we had and left him in a cell. The rest was up to them and they just toke him away. That's it!" He started breathing heavy, trying to scoot back away from Max.

"Fine. I believe you." Max lowered her gaze and made like she was going to turn and leave but something inside of her tore at her heart. Middle man or not, this man had agreed to sell Alec to some General without even knowing what he was going to do to him - without caring if he was going to kill him or not. He hadn't treated Alec's injuries out of concern for the transgenic, but so he could get a paycheck out of keeping him alive.

Fury bubbled inside of her and she met Bullet's eyes who saw what was flashing through her chocolate eyes and nodded his approval.

She turned around in a split second and kicked Evan in the head, causing his own body to fall and skid across the room, crashing into the coffee table that broke and left him unconscious.

He'd survive, but damn if it didn't feel good to make at least someone pay for what Alec was probably going through right now. Especially someone who had paid a part in putting him where he currently was. A part of her argued that she should thank the bastard at least, if it weren't for his selfish transactions Alec probably would have been left to bleed out and die in that warehouse or some other prison.

She picked up his wallet from the counter and pocketed almost all the money. It seemed only fair that Alec should get the money that was paid for him when he got back. She left only about $200 for the medical care he'd given Alec and followed Bullet out of the broken apartment, stepping over the battered door once more.

Time to get back to Terminal City and get Dix to find out who A. Hastings was.

000101100111010 DARK ANGEL 11100010010101

The guards dragged Alec's body that was still occasionally twitching and leaving his limbs feeling like jelly to a large iron door with a large frosted window that toke up most of the door.

The third guard toke out a large ring of keys and started unlocking a row of locks down the door, finally pulling open the handle and letting out a huge gust of frozen air.

Alec's green eyes shot curiously to Curly who was eyeing him back with a different look of curiosity in his eyes.

"Yes, it's a freezer. We need to see what temperatures you creatures can withstand." Curly said, answering the mental question in Alec's eyes.

Alec was roughly thrown into the icy vault, his hands touching the frozen floor and instantly jerking back. The ice bit at his bare feet and he was alarmed for the first time since he'd woken up yesterday that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Don't worry; we'll keep check on you. Just let us know whenever you want to give us the answers we want and you'll be released." Curly managed to tell him before the door shut with an ominous clang and Alec heard the click of locks sliding back into place.

His body shivered now a combination of the cold and the after effects of the shock. He wrapped his bare arms tightly around his chest as his breaths came out with little huffs of smoke.

He closed his eyes, willing the stubborn X5 soldier in him to come out but it stayed locked away inside of him while he was alone, leaving him feeling defeated.

"Come on Max..."


	4. Structural Defect

Chapter 4: Structural Defect

It had been five days. Five freaking days. Five days that Alec had been gone and Max was going out of her mind running through every contact she knew to find out anything she could about A. Hastings. Five days that Mole had to drag her out of the command center because she was putting Dix on edge as he tried to hack into various military personnel files. Five days that Alec could be loosing his life. Five days that they had been wasting their time tracking down goons that didn't know anything or breaking into empty warehouses that didn't hold her treasure. She had somehow made it through five days but she doubted she could make it through another five minutes or she was going to break.

"Arthur Hastings, Andrew Hastings, Anthony Hastings Jr, Amelia Hastings, Aaron Hastings, and Arnold Hastings but the only A. Hastings listed in the military records for this area that's a five-star General is Avery Hastings. And that's the highest rank you can get, isn't it?" Dix turned and looked up at Max after reading off what he found.

She nodded, biting her bottom lip. "Yeah. It is. Sounds like that's our guy then... any way you can find out where we can pay him a little visit?"

Dix spun the chair back towards the computer. "It may take awhile but I think I can hack into the personal data and find where he's stationed.

"You think he'd take him to a government building?" Mole spoke up, sounding uncertain and Max had been thinking the same thing. If she was a high ranking general with a genetically engineered soldier, would she take him someone listed, or somewhere private?

"Yeah. I do think so. They probably won't expect anyone to look for him so I doubt they'd cover their tracks. And he'd want somewhere well financed and with guards." She just had to hope she was right in her assumptions.

"Well if that's the case, I think I know where he is. For real this time." The corner of Dix's mouth twitched, as if it wanted to smile but was half afraid.

"Good. I'm sick of this goose chase. I want him back. Tonight."

11010100101001 DARK ANGEL 1110100011010

His body was shaking as if he were on the verge of having a seizure that wouldn't emerge completely. He kept waiting for the painful moment that his body would loose control but it never happened.

All that happened was his arm burned and he couldn't stop scratching it. His breathing alternated between raspy breaths and quick gasps as if his pulse didn't know how to beat regularly anymore so it switched back and forth between too slow and too fast to try and make up for the difference.

It was agonizing. All he wanted to do was bash his head against the wall until it went away and he was swept into a numb oblivion. Actually, that wasn't a half bad idea. After all, there were four walls to choose from. Now it was just the choice of which he wanted to decorate with his blood.

He was saved from the decision when his door opened and Curly stepped through, smiling as if he was happy to see Alec and he thought Alec should be happy to see him too.

Alec wasn't happy to see him. Alec still wanted to rip his head off. That wasn't going to change anytime soon.

He'd lost track of the days. He stopped watching the sun come up and down when he had started twitching and couldn't focus on anything except making the twitches that turned into full-blown shakes stop. He was constantly in and out of consciousness and couldn't keep track of where the sun was in the sky when he woke up anymore anyways.

But he knew it had been too long.

He was starting to doubt his faith in Max. Maybe he thought too highly of her and she really didn't think of him as anything more than a screw up after all. Maybe he wasn't worth the rescue, the risk, or the effort to her. Was he worth that to anyone? Joshua, Bullet and Dalton maybe, but they'd never be able to pull this off by themselves. If there had been some sort of rescue coming after him, they'd probably given up by now.

At least it looked like he was finally going to fulfill what he thought he started almost a week ago. Dying and leaving Max to be happy with Logan. He just hated that he'd never get the chance to tell her she deserved better. Much better.

He could almost hear her voice echoing in his memory, scoffing in disbelief and telling him 'better? What like you? Don't make me laugh.' He could almost feel his heart break if these damned jitters would give him half a second to breathe properly.

"Did you know you could hold your breath for ten minutes and forty-three seconds?"

Alec simply glared at the wannabe-scientist. Of course he knew that, they'd timed them back at Manticore back when they were training them. He just wished that when these special brands of freaks had decided to dump him in a tank full of water to test out his time limitations, they would have just let him drown and let it be over there. But no, apparently they had fished his body back out after he passed out underwater and decided that they weren't ready to let him rest in peace yet.

Curly continued. "Can all of your kind hold your breath for that long? Do any of you have fish DNA?"

He honestly didn't know why they insisted on continuing to ask him questions. Must just like the sound of their own voices because Alec had stopped talking altogether days ago. Or weeks ago? Months ago? Hell, he didn't know. All he knew that it toke too much energy to respond and he wasn't going to waste it on them.

Curly stepped closer to him in his silence. After the days...or weeks...or months...or however long it had been he used the remote less and less. Alec had learned quickly to be more careful of his movements and plan things out better after the first few electrocutions. Now if only he could stop shaking and itching and burning long enough to think and properly formulate a plan.

"I can make it go away."

Alec's eyes jerked up to search Curly's face and narrowed his green eyes. Make it go away? Was he offering to kill him after all this? No way, it couldn't be that easy. And if it was he didn't want to think about what they were planning on doing with his body and his fuel to fight for life returned.

Instead of a gun however, Curly pulled a small syringe from his coat pocket. Alec recognized the vile in a split second. They'd been using it on him several times a day at most every time ever since he'd arrived. Inside was a strong pain reliever and sedative...and possibly some other cocktail combination of more illegal drugs such as heroin, morphine, meth, anything strong enough to put a transgenic out for a few hours.

He didn't resist as Curly pushed the needle into his arm, tapping the end to only release a little bit of the clear liquid. It was enough. He felt the burn ebb away although he still felt the need to scratch his arm where the needle had punctured his skin until he clawed off his limb.

Taking a deep breath he looked up at Curly, knowing exactly what his smug smirk meant. He thought they had Alec addicted to their drugs. They thought they could use this to bend him to their will. They thought that he'd crawl on his hands and knees and tell them whatever they wanted for a fix.

They thought wrong.

So congratulations, they managed to overdose his superior transgenic body into getting addicted to a drug. His immune system was still stronger than any ordinary human. He could out last them if they decided to withhold the drug. And when they did, he'd just wait. Wait, and probably suffer and shake until it passed and then he'd wait until the perfect moment to take them all by surprise and snap their necks.

So now it was down to a battle of willpower. Well, they could ask Max. Alec McDowell was one stubborn sonovabitch.

"You know we're being nice right now. We're still feeding you. We're not hurting you. All we want are answers." Curly regained his distance, waiting for a response from Alec.

Alec merely glared at him. If that's what he was waiting for, he was going to be waiting a very long time. Feeding him? Sure, they did that. Whatever was leftover from their mess hall mixed together in a plastic green bowl on the ground that said 'GIR' in sharpie. Alec refused to act like the animal they thought him to be and would sit against the wall, setting the bowl in his lap and eat from it as if it were any other day back in Terminal City and he was just in the middle of watching the boob tube and too exhausted to wash any clean utensils. And he'd eaten worse before anyways. Honestly, he usually mixed his mashed potatoes up with everything back at home. Sure it got disgusting and sloppy the day they'd had chowder but he wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of hearing him complain.

As for not hurting him, what did they consider these tests to be? Locking him up in conditions that would kill normal humans and waiting for him to be on the brink of death just to bring him back to his room for recovery to start again the next day...did they not consider that hurting him? He guessed not. Anything in the name of science for these freaks. After all, he was just a lab rat- a test subject to them.

His silence earned him and quick and almost painless zap from the shock collar. Just enough to jolt him out of his thoughts and back to the situation at hand.

A hand reached down and cupped him around his jaw, forcing him to lift his eyes to meet cold, dark eyes hidden behind wide-rimmed glasses. Alec growled deep in his throat at the contact. He'd never been touched by these people without some sort of weapon to use on him while he was conscious. The skin on skin contact was sending a feeling of disgust crawling up his spine. These bastards were getting cocky if they thought they could man-handle him.

"Maybe you should just do what we tell you to, you filthy beast. Things could get worse, much worse. We'll stop playing nice."

Alec tilted his head to the side and stopped listening. Curly could go on these rants for hours. The same meaningless, we're better than you and we'll hurt you rants that he spat out every day. Empty threats that Alec was getting tired of listening to.

Because he quickly realized his time had come.

The dumbass had one hand wrapped around his precious clipboard, and the other with his fingers digging into Alec's jaw. The remote lay defenseless in his jacket pocket. He'd given him just enough of the drug cocktail to stop his shakes but not enough to render him useless. And here he was, touching him, with his guard completely down, thinking he had Alec under control.

No one control Alec. He submitted to no one. No one but Max. And this guy sure as hell wasn't his Maxie.

With one fluid moment Alec grabbed the hand around his jaw and jerked it, snapping it cleanly in two as Curly yelped and dropped his clipboard, hands scrambling for the remote in his jacket pocket.

Alec swung his leg out and kicked Curly's legs out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor and pounced on him. His transgenic body, even in its drugged state, stronger than the weak scientist. He grabbed the remote, feeling a moment of triumph as he held the weapon that had been his worst enemy since he'd first woken up in this cell and crushed it against the ground. The collar went cold around his neck as it lost contact with the remote; the electricity that was pacing inside its mechanics came to a humming stop.

He pinned the terrified looking human to the floor and glared down at him with cold, green eyes. The eyes of X5-494, the eyes of a soldier ready to do whatever it toke and pay whatever price was demanded for survival.

"Tell me Curly, how much did you yucks figure out about me? Did you know that I can break your neck just like I broke your wrist in 0.5 seconds?"

The frightened squeak that the man emitted was his answer.

"So this is what we're going to do. We're going to reverse the roles. And YOU'RE going to tell me what I want to know. And what I want is the key to get out of these damn chains." He wiggled one of his wrists slightly, making the chains that still attached him to the wall jingle. "And if you don't tell me, I'm going to start doing a few experiments of my own on you."

"Back pocket-backpocket!" Curly squirmed underneath him and easily gave him the answer, desperate to get the trained killer off of him.

Alec rolled his eyes. Humans. He didn't break in god-knows-how-long-he'd-been-here, and this one was giving everything up in less than three minutes. No wonder Manticore had drilled them so hard on interrogations so that they wouldn't be as weak as this specimen laying on the floor right now.

He maneuvered so that both of Curly's wrists were captured in one hand and pinned to the floor, not even caring about the agonized sounds he was making as he jostled the broken limb. Reaching underneath his body, he slid his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and felt his fingers touch the cool metal of a set of keys. Victory mixed with disgust once again. Caressing this man's ass to get the keys to his freedom was not something he ever wanted to do. Oh the things you did for freedom.

He pulled the keys out and gave Curly one last glance before raising his fist and knocking him out cold in one strike. He jumped up, off the floor and the limp human and felt the ground beneath him roll slightly under his feet. Damn drugs, he cursed as he fitted key after key into the locks around his wrists until one clicked and he sprang free.

Just as the door to his room busted open, revealing three heavily armed men with guns pointed at him and at least four more behind them in the hallway. He gave the security cameras in the corner of his room an irritated glance and cursed himself for not being able to act quicker before turning back to the men.

"Aw guys, sorry to break it to ya, but you're a little late for the sleep-over." He nodded his head to Curly on the ground, who was still out cold. "But you know the rules; first one asleep gets the pranks pulled on them. So. Who has the glass of warm water?" He raised an eyebrow and smirked, trying to keep his tone light as he weighed his choices. He'd never be able to reach or get out the window above his head with the thick bars before they'd shoot him in the back. He could try and take them by surprise and knock out two, maybe three before the others waiting behind them would take him out. He could just go for a flat out run and dive between their legs to escape into the hallway but who knew how many others were out there and how would he get out of this place? It was surely on high-alert right now.

The one in front cocked his gun aimed at Alec's head. "You're only useful to us if you don't escape. Try anything, and we'll kill you. Got it? Now drop the keys and put your hands in the air."

Alec clenched his jaw as his options ran through his head over and over again. The odds were 3 to 10. He had a slim chance of getting out of this but he couldn't just sit around here and wait for Max to rescue him anymore. When did he become a damn damsel in distress anyways? He'd spent twenty years being trained in Manticore. Time to put that training to the test and show off what they'd created him for.

He raised his hands in false surrender, the keys still dangling in his fingers. He looked up at the keys in mock surprise. "Oh yeah, the keys...you wanted these back, right?"

He hurled the keys at the guard, hitting him in the head as his finger pulled the trigger and the shot went wild. He managed to dodge the next two shots by dodging to the left and dropping to one knee to slide across the floor, hearing them whiz past his ear and slam into the plastered walls behind him.

He darted forward, mixing two of his plans together to slide in-between the head guard's legs and into the hallway to spring up and knock out two of the guards with a elbow and a punch to the face that had been waiting as back-up and never had a chance to react to his escape. He lunged at the one that turned around from the doorframe and grabbed him; hurling his body into the other two guards that had been in the room with him and watching them topple over as they crashed into one another like poorly stacked dominoes.

That left the other two guards in the hallway, and he could hear the sound of heavy boots running down that he assumed to be more guards coming to reinforce the fallen ones.

A bullet grazed his arm and he grabbed the weapon from the guard, jerking it forward before throwing it back into his face and watching him drop to the ground in oblivion as blood gushed down his face from the broken nose he'd given him with his own weapon.

Spinning, he grabbed the last guard's weapon and brought his other arm around to twist the guard's arm out of its socket, forcing him to drop the gun from his grasp.

That went better than planned, he thought, giving one of the stirring guards a kick to the head just for good measure as he reached down to grab several of the guns. He slipped a small .45 into the waist of his pants and strapped one of the AK-47's around his shoulders as he toke off running down the hallway in the opposite direction of the approaching guard's boots that echoed down the corridors.

Blood tricked down his arm but he ignored it. It was just a flesh wound and for the moment, he couldn't even feel it. His only thoughts right now were getting the hell out of this place.

001111010100101 DARK ANGEL 10101000010101

"You're not going to like this Max."

Max huffed and rolled her eyes at the computer genius transhuman. "What gave you the impression that I'd like ANYTHING that you could tell me from those files?"

Dix shifted his weight from one leg to the other and gave her a disgruntled look. Max felt a little guilty about her attitude and the way she'd been treating the others around here but she couldn't help it. Ever since Alec was captured she'd been in a state of constant panic that threatened to throw her into the waves of despair and she was so close to getting him back now. She couldn't break now. She'd allow herself to break later, when Alec was back and would be able to make fun of her for being a girl and crying with his cocky smile and self-assured voice.

"They've got quite a bit of, ah...information... on us. And I don't mean like, X5-494's name, height and weight...I mean..." He stared down at the papers he'd printed out unable to put his thoughts into words, to say what Alec might have gone through out loud so Max reached over and toke the papers from his grasp.

X5-494 - Gir. Gir? Was that what they were calling Alec? She felt a fury unlike anything she'd felt before bubble up inside of her. She'd named him and in naming him she had claimed him, taken him as her own in a way that didn't pertain to the others that she had named such as Bullet, Zero and Fixit. She'd named them out of a split second decision because she had felt that they needed real names to live outside of Manticore. Not that you could really consider those 'real names' but anything was better than a number and she was under pressure at the time.

Alec had been different. He had been the first person she'd named and he embraced it with a slight tilt of his head and a nod. They'd barely known each other, she'd kicked him against the door, and he was allowing her to give him a name. Not only give it to him, but accept it and use it as his own. It was something she never understood, but never questioned. Why he had so easily taken the name and kept it when he could have chosen something different as soon as Manticore burned down and he was free from her. Why he never ran with the others that had left the city and stayed around. Why hadn't he forced himself on her that fateful day that he walked into her cell as her breeding partner because he knew that if they didn't have sex he'd have to suffer the consequences of her stubbornness from Renfro.

He'd allowed himself to be hers by taking that name and sticking around with her. She wasn't going to let them take that away. She had the urge to rip the section of the paper with 'Gir' printed on it off and burn it, watching with satisfaction as the paper curled and blackened into nothing along with the false name it held.

She pushed her anger down to finish reading.

Gir: barcode: X5-331845739494. Wolf and Hawk DNA. Yep, that was Alec alright; she didn't even need to read the height or physical description of his dark blonde hair and freckles to know. She'd know that barcode and DNA sequence anywhere.

Next listed a long list of sedatives, tranquilizers, muscle-relaxers, pain-killers and numbers cross-examining them with other illegal drugs.

"Dix." She said, pointing to the list. "What does this mean?"

Dix carefully avoided her eyes as he looked over the paper. "It looks like they've been mixing these together to see what works best on...subduing him."

"They used these drugs on him?" She could have sworn her voice was louder than the whisper that came out in disbelief. More than one of them? More than once?"

He nodded. "Looks that way. Looks like several times a day, large dosages."

Max fought to not crumple the papers in her grip. Heavy drug usage could affect even transgenics and she didn't like how long the list was, as if they'd been experimenting on him with this the whole time they'd had him. Her breath caught in her throat and she saw several of the drugs repeated over and over towards the bottom with notes next to them such as 'keeps him out for longer than others', 'subject showing signs of addiction.' But that was impossible for transgenics to get addicted to drugs, right? She shook her head. She hadn't known anyone stupid enough to take drugs but it had to be impossible. She skimmed other notes such as 'increases the shakes' and continued.

'Temperature max: negative fifteen degrees Celsius for nine hours and fifteen minutes. One hundred and seven degrees Celsius for twenty-eight hours and three minutes.' Which meant that the bastards had locked Alec in a freezer and then a room under a powerful heat lamp just to watch him- see how long it toke him to pass out. Or worse.

'Underwater test: can hold breath for ten minutes and forty-three seconds.' Meant the same thing and Max fought to the idea of Alec trapped under water struggling for air out of her mind.

'Voltage max: Fifty percent to make subject drop. Seventy for unconscious.' She didn't even want to imagine what that meant. Were they electrocuting Alec just for the fun of it? Just to see how much he could withstand?

The next two pages showed bone marrow and blood test results. They must have decided to make best of their time while Alec was unconscious as well and strapped him down for medical experiments.

The next page made Max's heart stop in her chest. They showed three black and white printed out photos of Alec. One where he was in a barren room, sitting with his back against the wall that she could see chains protruding from and attached to the shackles around his wrist. He looked to be in a white t-shirt and some sort of medical scrub pants, and she couldn't see his face from where it was dropped down onto his chest from defeat of exhaustion. Neither she liked the idea of. There appeared to be some sort of collar around his neck and she didn't even want to know what it was for.

The other photo, he was clearly sleeping in. He was pale, shirtless and strapped down to a metal table, his arms eagle spread out to his side. His hair had lost its spike and bounce and lay limp along his forehead. She could see gauze taped to his shoulder and waist and dark stains seeping through that could only be blood. As she suspected, the time stamp at the bottom of the photo stated the night they'd lost him. The night they captured him, and taken him from her because of her careless mistake and clouded judgment.

The last photo, his eyes were open for but he wasn't awake. She could see it in his eyes although the picture was in black and white. His pupils were pinpricks and so glazed over it gave his usual bright eyes an empty and haunted look. There was a white gloved hand on the side of his face, holding his head still as a needle was injected into his neck and Max couldn't take it anymore.

She slammed the papers down on the table. "Is everyone ready to go yet or not?"

"Aren't you going to finish reading those?"

"No." Max pulled on her bike gloves. "It doesn't matter what they did to him. It's in the past. Time to look to the future. All that matters is what we're going to do to THEM when we get him back."

Mole smirked smugly around his cigar in the corner, with his arms crossed. Tonight was going to be a good night.

Avery Hastings was currently in charge of a district training base off the coast of Washington. He'd applied to transfer there five days ago out of the blue. His superiors were stumped, but Max knew he'd done it because it had a medical base attached and the equipment he'd need to use on Alec and that night had been the night he'd gotten him. This must have been where they'd brought him after buying him off those sleazy sector cops.

She thanked whatever God didn't care that he at least kept him close in Washington instead of transferring him all the back to his original base in Arizona. The distance wouldn't have stopped her from going after him, but certainly would have made things more difficult in evasion and retrieval.

Bullet and Mole slipped off to one side of the building to look for a back way in while Max and Joshua eased into the shadows around the entrance. Dalton, who had insisted on coming along despite his age, hid in the shadows on the perimeter as a look out with the radio that was a direct link to Fixit and Dix.

They tried to keep their number small so it'd be easier for them to sneak in undetected but since their group still included two huge trans-humans one looking like a canine and the other a heavily armed lizard, she doubted that they'd have the luxury of time or stealth on their sides and opted to just work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Joshua gave her a boost as she pried open a window and slipped through to land on the hard tiles inside. Darting to the door, she listened for noises. Far away she could hear the stomp of boots and the echoes of voices but so far, the coast was clear and she slipped out to let Joshua in the small side-door from outside.

Together they crept along the hallways, dodging into a room on the side whenever one of them thought they heard someone coming. She supposed training bases must have fewer guards than actual military bases that had plans or armories to guard because she was finding this way too easy. It was almost as if the guards were distracted by something else, and she hoped that Bullet and Mole hadn't been detected already. She didn't think she could rescue three transgenics tonight.

Her suspicions were confirmed for the worst when she heard gunfire from the floor above them and threw caution to the wind as she darted down the hallway, blurring as fast as her transgenic legs would take her until she found the stairwell, not caring if anyone saw her on the way.

Her curses to Bullet and Mole for getting caught were cut short when she nearly crashed into them on the stairwell.

"Damn it, what did you do?" She shouted, grabbing Bullet by the arm.

He jerked back out of her grasp. "Me? I didn't do anything!" He protested and all of their eyes shot upwards as another shot rang out and the younger transgenics eyes met her brown ones in understanding that they clearly weren't the ones being shot at.

The four of them rushed up the stairs, bursting through the door and running down the hall towards the commotion. Max winced at the loud sound their boots made against the tiles and hoped the guards would only think they were reinforcements if they heard them and they'd still have a slight element of surprise.

Skidding to a stop around a corner, Bullet almost crashed into her and Joshua reached out to steady him.

On the ground laid seven guards unconscious and several broken limbs. She jumped over their bodies to look inside the door that was almost broken and threatening to fall off of its hinges and recognized the chains and mattress inside from the photo she'd seen earlier. This had been Alec's room. But now the chains were empty and there was yet another man laying on the ground inside.

Mole let out a whistle. "Looks like pretty boy got tired of waiting around."

Max turned back to the empty hallway, noticing the blood splattered on the ground and leaving a trail away and nodded. Alec must have heard them approaching and thought what she had been praying for, that anyone listening would think they were only extra soldiers. Great timing God, way to listen to that one small prayer and send the person they were trying to rescue running for the exits.

So now it had turned from a rescue mission to a chase. Max cursed her luck with a tongue that would have made a sailor proud and toke off running down the hallway, following the trail of red smeared on the white tiles.

00111010101 DARK ANGEL 1101010011001

Alec burst through the doors to the roof, the cool air slapping him in the face and giving him a slight relief.

The dark night sky surrounded him and he could hear waves crashing close by. He remembered Avery mentioning once that they were at a base by the water front but he had no idea he'd meant right on the water front. He could smell the salt and taste it on the tip of his tongue as the breeze teased his face and assaulted his senses.

Heading to the roof hadn't been the brightest of ideas but he knew from experience that the lowers levels were always more heavily guarded than the top and he had been counting on a ladder of some sort to be up here for him to climb down. He prowled around the edge of the roof looking for one in the darkness, tension mounting and making his muscles twitch.

No, dammit, no. That wasn't the tension. The bit of drugged peace Curly had offered him earlier had worn off and he wanted to scream as he felt a shudder run through his body, igniting his nerves on fire and reminding him of the wound he'd gotten earlier. It was just a graze and nothing deep but now it burned and felt like his blood was literally boiling out of his skin through it.

He gripped his hand tight around it, pushing the pain from his mind as he heard the familiar echo of boots on steel stairs coming closer up the stairwell.

He edged close to the ledge of the building, looking below at the dark waters crashing onto the side of the building and possibly rocks. After all this, if they caught him, they'd kill him. It was the end of the line. There was no ladder, no escape, no way out and in his drugged state he could feel his body slowing down and starting to protest his thoughts to control it as he shivered in the night air that wasn't even remotely cold.

He could jump. If he survived the impact he could try to swim to the shore and escape from there. If not, he'd die and at least his body would be at peace at the bottom of the ocean, away from these men's experiments.

Another burning shudder coursed through him, sending him to his knees on the ledge and almost threatening to make his decision for him and throw his body over the edge before he was mentally prepared.

The doors burst open again and Alec turned his body into a prepared crouching stance, ready to jump or dodge at a seconds notice. But instead of tall soldiers were guns aimed and ready, he could see the silhouette of a familiar female form with long brown hair whipping around her in the wind.

"Max?"


	5. All the Right Moves

Chapter 5: All the Right Moves

Alarms blared in the distance and Alec swayed unsteadily on the edge of the room, staring in disbelief at who had just burst through the doors after him with her long brown hair whipping around her lithe body in the wind.

"Max?"

Max nodded and toke an uncertain step towards him. "Get away from the ledge Alec." She held out a hand in front of her, motioning to him to come to her.

He shuddered from where he knelt, as agonizing pain washed through his body and the ringing alarms mixing with the sound of the waves crashing below him and muffling her voice. But he could see the light from the stairwell shining around her and illuminating her facial features and her beautiful chocolate brown eyes in the dark night. There was no mistaking her out-stretched hand and he slowly staggered to his feet, stepping away from where he could dangerously tumble over the building.

No sooner than he toke a few steps Max rushed forward and her body crashed into his, her arms wrapping around his shaking torso and her fingers clawing into the fabric of his shirt, desperate for reassurance that he was with her. Her face buried itself into the crook of his shoulder and neck and he felt something wet there that he was sure wasn't the ocean breeze.

"I knew you'd come Maxie." He whispered to her.

She snorted and nuzzled her face into his shoulder to dry her tears before looking at him, her soldier mask in place as if she hadn't just been crying.

"Why couldn't you have waited two more minutes then Damsel?"

He shrugged and smirked at her. "Not my style to wait around." He swatted playfully at her hair that was blowing wildly in the harsh wind. "And not to insult you or anything, but your hair is like the Kraken. It's attacking my face."

"I'll attack your face." She mumbled and rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Alec let out a breath. That was the best thing anything had said to him in almost a week and he shakily followed her footsteps back to where he could now see Joshua, Mole and Bullet. Go figure they would have come along with her. He was momentarily touched by the risk they'd all taken to come for him and then that was immediately followed by guilt. He was putting them all in danger because he hadn't been able to escape sooner. Because he'd gotten captured in the first place.

Thinking about his capture reminded him of the painful fact that churned in his gut that he'd practically shoved Logan back to Max so any slim chance he'd had with her before had been completely eliminated by his own actions.

He followed Max through the doors, leading back to the stairwell, Mole leading the way down and Joshua and Bullet closing in behind them. The group of transgenics froze as a door below them slammed opened and the sound of boots on metal stairs thundered and echoed in the stairwell once more.

"I don't suppose you brought more reinforcements, did you?" Alec asked, his green eyes darting to Max who shook her head as Mole spun on his heel and ushered them back up onto the roof.

"Looks like you get to take a swan dive after all pretty boy. And we get to join you. Oh joy." Mole grumbled, tucking his gun into his belt and rolling his reptilian eyes.

"Can you even swim?" Bullet asked Mole, and inched away behind Joshua at the glare that answered his question.

"Ok everybody; we'll go in teams, count off so we don't crash into each other." Max ordered, tucking her long hair behind one ear. "Someone's going to have to jump alone. They'll go first so the rest of us can check up on you."

Mole shrugged. "Might as well be me." The lizard transgenic toke a running start and jumped without even looking down, springing himself into the air and vanishing from their sight. Max stood at the edge, mouthing numbers as she counted down and watched his progress.

"Ok big fella. You and Bullet up next."

Joshua protectively put a large hand around Bullet's wrist to keep contact with him during the fall as they both ran and jumped over the edge together and as they went over Alec saw Joshua pull Bullet closer to him, to protect him from the heavy impact of the water when they hit. Joshua seemed like an older brother to everyone and was always doing his best to keep everyone else safe at the expense of himself. He supposed it was from years of taking care of the anomalies in the basement and not being locked up or trained the way the rest of them were. Or maybe it was just the mans-best-friend DNA living up to its expectations...

It was Max's turn to look up at him as she stood on the ledge and held out her hand once again, but this time reversed. Instead of trying to coax him away from the edge she was now motioning him towards it and encouraging him to jump.

From the look on her face, the others had successfully and safely landed in the water away from the rocks and as he got closer to where he could see the ocean he could see Mole's figure heaving itself up onto a rock near the shore as two dots bobbed in the water moving towards him that were Joshua and Bullet's heads.

Taking Max's hand in his own, they simultaneously backed up a few feet before taking a running start together as the stairwell burst open behind them unleashing a chorus of shouts. He felt his feet leave the ground as he went airborne with Max and a hail of gunfire rained down over their heads as they free fell into the water below.

Max twisted mid-air and gripped the front of his shirt with her free hand, never letting go of his hand that she held tightly in her other hand. Alec wrapped his arm around the back of her neck, tucking her head close to his body as they crashed into the water.

The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and he gagged, quickly shutting his mouth and ignoring the salty taste that was now in his throat. The mixture of the sudden cold water surrounding him and the lack of air clashed with the drug withdrawal and he cursed as it momentarily sent his body into shock.

Max must have felt his body shudder and stiffen against her as she let go of his hand and wrapped an arm around his torso, kicking her legs harder to propel the both of them towards the surface.

He weakly moved his own legs, desperately trying to help her as his consciousness started to take on an edge of blurry white. He heard her break the surface first, her gasp for air and then her panicked yelp as he slipped from her grasp and started sinking.

Alec didn't sink far before a strong hand grabbed the back of his shirt and heaved him up, pulling him out of the water and roughly dragging him onto a rock that scraped at his exposed skin. He choked up water and rolled onto his side, ignoring the fact that he was currently laying across Joshua's leg, who had been the one to pull him up out of the water and had quite literally pulled him onto his own lap.

His body shivered as Joshua patted his back a bit harder than necessary in an attempt to help get the remaining water out of his lungs. Soft hands placed themselves on either side of his face, forcing him to look up into Max's chocolate eyes.

"Aw come on Alec, don't have a seizure, not now. We're almost out of here."

He shook his head free, unable to meet her eyes any longer. "N-not...a seizure..."

Joshua wrapped his strong arms around Alec and helped him to his feet. "Bullet went with Mole for vehicle and Dalton. Should be back soon. Get out of here. K?"

So Dalton was here too, it wasn't that big of a surprise that the kid had weaseled his way along and he was just glad that he had been left somewhere safe while the others infiltrated the military base. Alec forced himself to smile through the pain to reassure his big friend and was rewarded with a small canine smile in return although Max wasn't as easily fooled.

"Just try and take it easy until they get here, ok?"

He nodded again, letting himself lean against Joshua so he wouldn't have to support his weight. The drugs were wearing his system down and the escape had taken almost everything out of him. He just didn't have the energy to respond with words.

His body was still reeling back from the shock and sent a fire coursing through his veins like nothing he had ever experienced before. He jerked harshly and tried to push himself away from Joshua who had tightened his grip around him, not letting him escape his grasp. Drugged or not, he was still a transgenic soldier. He wouldn't let someone hold him like some pathetic damsel in distress. He was fine with leaning his weight on Joshua, but he wasn't going to let the larger trans-human support him completely.

Funny how Renfro always said that my pride would be my downfall, he managed to think to himself before he lost the fight with his own body.

0010101110 DARK ANGEL 111000100101010

Max saw Alec's eyes roll up into his head as his legs buckle underneath him and rushed forward to catch him despite Joshua already having his arms securely wrapped around the smaller transgenic's body.

He had confirmed the fears she had back at Terminal City when he told her his convulsions weren't from a seizure. The bastards here had heavily drugged him and his body was going through withdrawals, something worse than the seizures that they usually had.

She'd seen movies of people going through withdrawals and trying to get clean. They always seemed to end with the person tied to a bed or locked in a bathroom, screaming and writhing in pain and begging for release. And sometimes it killed them.

She toke Alec's head in her hands once again, feeling his wet dirty blonde hair in-between her fingers and shook him.

"Alec! Hey now, don't do this, wake up! Wake up Alec!"

Joshua scooped him up entirely into his arms now that he wasn't awake to protest it. If the situation wasn't so dire she'd take a picture on her camera phone to mock him with later but right now she couldn't see past the fact that the strong soldier, the man she'd fallen in love with, was so weak right now that he couldn't even stay awake or support himself.

It pained her to see that these people had forced Alec to fall so far from who he usually was. If she could get away with it without bringing unwanted consequences on the citizens of Transgenic City, she'd march right back into that building with all of Mole's arsenal and murder every single person who had touched Alec, or watched him being experimented on, or helped the process along in one way or another. She'd kill every single last one of them.

But a blood bath of humans would result in her kind never having the freedom or safety that they were fighting for, so she remained where she was. She felt helpless as she watched Joshua trying to keep Alec still against the twitches and shudders that were still running amok through his limp body.

Headlights shone in the distance with the rumble of an old engine she recognized as the van they'd taken to get here. It stopped a ways off, unable to get any closer. The poor busted up vehicle could barely run on pavement and it seemed like Mole didn't want to chance it getting stuck in the sand as he waved an arm out the window to motion for them to hurry and get over to them.

Max toke Joshua's extra gun out of the back of his pants and cocked it. She hated guns and had sworn that she'd never use one but there was no way she was going to risk letting anyone getting their hands on Alec again.

They sprinted to the van and Dalton threw open the back doors from inside, letting Joshua clamber in first, and making sure Alec was safely deposited on the floor of the van as she heard gun shots going off behind them.

She turned, seeing guards running to them, guns ready and out in front of them and aiming to kill. They didn't seem to care anymore about capturing transgenics alive, not if it meant letting the one they had previously captured go free.

Dalton scurried back to the front of the van, shouting something into the radio that he was holding that had a connection back to Dix at Terminal City.

Bullets ricocheted off the metal of the van as Bullet hoisted himself out the passenger side window to sit on the edge and returned fire. Joshua closed one side of the van doors, leaving room for Max to climb in but leaving Alec un-protected as another bullet lodged itself in the vans door.

Max dove inside of the van, in front of Alec and felt a sting in her arm as warm blood oozed out of the small hole and down her skin. The door slammed shut behind her as Mole put his foot to the gas, causing the tires and spin and squeal out of the premises of the military base, kicking up dirt and gravel in their departure.

"Think they'll follow?" Bullet asked, still hanging out the window with his gun cocked ready to fire.

"Not if their smart." Mole grumbled. "How's pretty boy doing back there? You guys ok?" He asked a bit louder, not taking his yellow eyes off the road.

Max had already crawled over to Alec's prone form, ignoring Joshua trying to grab her arm to fuss over her injury.

"Max shot." Joshua told them.

"Max? You got shot? Where?" Mole barked back to her and Dalton turned to look at her from his spot on the floor in-between Mole and Bullet's seats with his eyes wide.

"Just the arm. No biggie, I'm fine." She brushed it off and leveled Joshua with a stare that he returned with stubbornness as she checked Alec over for any fresh injuries.

Thankfully she didn't find any blood or broken bones. Although she didn't know if that would be different if she hadn't dove in front of him and taken the bullet in her arm. She gingerly touched the wound, grimacing as her fingers came away red and finally let Joshua take hold of her wrist and grab the first aid kit that they kept in the back.

Taking a bullet in the arm seemed like a small price to pay for getting Alec out. She couldn't stand that he had basically been tortured this whole time. She didn't know if she would have been able to keep it together if she actually watched him get hurt. She'd almost fallen apart back on the rocks when he'd collapsed into Joshua's arms.

It wasn't fair that Alec had to have gone through so much. It was supposed to be better out here than back in Manticore. Yet, it seemed like he was getting hurt worse than ever and having a much rougher time all together.

She reached out and placed her hand over his, relishing in the fact that although he was hurt and unconscious, he was back. He was here with her and it was going to stay that way. She was never going to leave him behind again. Hell, she was never going to leave his side again period if she could help it. And she wasn't about to let him go anywhere either.

These feelings that she didn't even realize that she'd harbored for him until recently were suddenly overwhelming. She'd never felt this way before, not about anyone, and not even about Logan.

She suddenly wanted to punch him for trying to leave her with Logan because it was what he thought would make her happy. Stupid Alec. So stupid.

But it had been his "dying wish" even if he hadn't died, that Logan keep her happy for him. Guys didn't usually say things like that, right? That had to mean something, right? Maybe he felt the same way towards her, even if just a little bit. She knew she could never replace Rachael in his heart but she could be a close second if he'd just let her try.

Anything was worth trying at this point. The only thing she knew for sure at the moment was that she couldn't stand the thought of loosing him again.

Bullet slid back into the van as Terminal City appeared in the distance, its decrypt, crumbling buildings loomed over them as they drove through the rusted wire gates and into the parking deck that seemed to be the sturdiest place in the whole city and somehow felt safe despite its immense darkness that filled it in-between its concrete pillars.

Joshua had finished bandaging her arm and she poked at it. Another bullet hole in her body, oh well, been there and done that before. After all, it wasn't anything mortal like Alec had suffered while he had been protecting Logan.

Joshua made a motion to pick up Alec again but Mole stopped him.

"Woah there, don't you think we should wake him up first? He ain't gonna like being carried all through the city like a princess on her wedding night for everyone to see."

Max jumped out of the van. "Well it doesn't matter what he's going to like or not right now. We need to get him up to the medical bay."

Mole huffed and allowed Joshua to hoist his smaller friend into his arms once again. Bullet looked sympathetic towards Alec, the transgenic he looked up to, and Max was surprised he wasn't clearing out the hallways from preying eyes just so Alec wouldn't be embarrassed when he woke up about letting people see him in his vulnerable state.

Dalton bounded out of the back of the van, landing gracefully for a transgenic of his age.

"I already radioed in that we'd need the medics set up. They should be ready by now."

Max twitched her lips into a small smile and ruffled the kid's blonde hair that was getting long and falling down the nape of his neck. At least it was helping to hide his barcode.

Dalton followed close beside Joshua, his eyes never leaving Alec and Bullet close behind him doing the same. Max supposed she'd never know what it'd be like to look up to an alpha the way those with wolf DNA like them did. She wouldn't mind trading her shark DNA to find out and start getting decent amounts of sleep but it wasn't like she could just waltz up to a doctor in hiding from Manticore and ask them to switch her DNA strands.

At least Alec's wolf DNA didn't seem to apply when it came to wolves mating for life. She thought the idea of it was romantic...if he'd actually follow the rules of it instead of bouncing around from mate to mate each night.

She sighed. All she wanted to do was curl up on Alec and get some rest. Listen to his heartbeat and feel his warm breath on her. But there were quite a few more bridges to cross before she could even let thoughts like that wander around in her mind. The first one was getting him through these damned withdrawals and clean again.

11101001011 DARK ANGEL 001010101010

Liam, the current head of the medical bay, carefully counted out several small white pills and laid them on the rickety table next to Alec's bed. Raulph, whom also worked in the medical bay despite the origin of earning her name, was slowly moving her hands over Alec's body, gently pushing down in areas to check for his muscle reactions.

Max was overcome by the need to smack her hands away and do it herself but kept herself in check with a deep breath. She'd never liked other girls touching Alec but before she'd just chalked it up to her being irritated that he was so forward, and risking these girls finding out what he was in case one of them wanted to kiss the back of his neck. Even after he started fooling around with transgenic females the irritation never left but she changed her reasoning to being because he should be working instead of getting off.

Now she couldn't deny that it was because she wanted to be the one placing her hands all over him and feeling his soft skin under her sensitive fingers. She wanted to stroke, caress, and even lick every inch of his freckled skin and she had to shake the image of Alec arching his back in pleasure under her touch and his mouth open in a moan out of her mind.

They'd managed somehow to get him out of his wet clothes and into a pair of navy blue scrub pants and Max severely hoped that Raulph hadn't participated in those actions or witnessed it happening. Jealousy was over-riding Max as the younger blonde transgenic female ran her over fingers through Alec's still damp hair and rested the hand of her hand against his forehead to check for a fever.

Raulph looked up, meeting Max's eyes and looking mildly confused and alarmed for a second.

"Max?" She asked.

Max merely made a non-committal grunt. She couldn't open her mouth. If she opened her mouth she was afraid she wouldn't be able to control herself and start screaming at the poor girl to get the hell away from Alec even though she was only doing her job. She knew it was irrational but she couldn't help it.

"We're uhm;" Raulph could clearly sense the tension in the room and shifted uncomfortably. "It's dangerous to make him quit cold turkey considering what they'd been giving him and how heavily he had been medicated. It could send his body into a shock that it might not be able to recover from and cause it to shut down completely- it could kill him. We're going to try to wean him off the heavy drugs with weaker pills like hydrocotin. Kind of like you wean a kitten off it's mother's milk to solid food, ya know? And then once it's not so bad we'll try to cut him off completely and see how he does." She stopped and looked at Max who nodded.

She didn't like the idea of giving Alec more drugs but it was a plausible idea and anything to prevent having to tie him down struggling and screaming in pain.

"We don't want to force him to stay here the whole process but he'll need to be around someone-"

"I'll do it." Max cut her off, immediately volunteering. And Raulph nodded, smiling.

"I knew you would." She tucked her blonde hair behind an ear and quietly exited the room.

Max looked at Liam who had been standing in the corner over-seeing the situation with his arms crossed and he shrugged, turning to leave as well.

Now alone in the room Max crossed over to Alec's bed and sat on the edge of it, looking down at him. His body still twitched with his system begging for the drugs it had become addicted to even with his mind currently shut down.

She ran a hand over his bare shoulders, tracing her fingers up his neck before letting them drop. Max wouldn't mind watching over Alec while he recovered. She didn't know if that meant she'd be watching him passed out on his couch, or ducking airborne objects but whatever it implied, she'd take it.

End ch 5

Sorry for the short and late chapter, I haven't had a lot of free time lately.


End file.
